ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Nearly 600 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) returned to their homes in the Nineveh and Salahaddin provinces on Thursday, and over 1700 have registered to return, an official from the Iraqi migration and displaced ministry told Rudaw.
Ali Abbas, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Displacement and Migration, told Rudaw that 599 displaced persons, residing in the Harsham camp for the internally displaced on the outskirts of Erbil city, left for their homes.
Abbas said that “a few days after the displaced individuals return and confirm their settlement, they will be given the benefits promised in exchange for their return.”
The Iraqi government has offered four million Iraqi dinars (about $3,050), a fridge, a stove, and a television to families who voluntarily return to their homes.
In addition to Thursday’s returnees, over 1,700 more have registered to return to their homes, according to Abbas.
In April, the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported there were 1,098,913 internally displaced persons (IDPs) across the country, primarily in Duhok, Erbil, Nineveh, Kirkuk, and Sulaimani provinces. At the time, it had recorded 4,871,916 people who had returned to their homes after the defeat of the Islamic State (ISIS).
Baghdad had set July 30 as the deadline for the Kurdistan Region to close its camps, though that timeline was later extended. Erbil refused to forcibly close the camps and in response, Iraqi Minister of Migration and Displacement Evan Faeq Jabro filed a lawsuit against the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
Abbas told Rudaw in August that there are still about 20,000 families residing in the IDP camps across the Kurdistan Region.
Despite the financial incentive, many families are reluctant to leave because of continued violence in their places of origin, a lack of reconstruction following the destruction of their homes, and little in the way of basic services.
Human rights advocates have expressed concern about Iraq’s push to close the camps, saying that all returns must be voluntary, safe, and dignified.
There are more than 630,000 IDPs in the Kurdistan Region, though most of them reside outside of the 23 camps established across Duhok, Erbil, and Sulaimani provinces, according to March figures from the KRG’s Joint Crisis Coordination Center.
IOM, citing data it collected in Iraq from April 1 to June 6, said that nearly a fifth of displaced persons “did not return to their location of origin and are considered secondarily displaced IDPs.”
