ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Around 1,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have been repatriated to their homeland of Shingal (Sinjar) in coordination with relevant authorities a month before Iraqi plans to close all camps in the country.
Iraq’s Ministry of Displacement and Migration repatriated 569 people from Sharia camp in Duhok, Kurdistan Region, to their homeland of Shingal (Sinjar) in Nineveh with the support of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and Nineveh Operations Command, Minister Evan Faeq Jabro told Rudaw on Thursday.
On Monday, the ministry also announced the return of 397 IDPs from Khanke camp in Duhok to Shingal.
“81 families… left Khanke informal site through our Facilitated Voluntary Movement programme, ensuring informed, safe, dignified movements from locations of displacements across [Iraq],” IOM Iraq announced in a post on X on Thursday.
The ministry’s Erbil office has increased efforts to implement Baghdad’s decision to close all IDP camps in the country, including in the Kurdistan Region, before July 30.
At the Lalish conference in Erbil on Tuesday, Germany’s Consul General Klaus Streicher said extending the deadline for camp closures could enable a safer and more effective repatriation process, preventing future relocations.
Many IDPs have been reluctant to return home. Some who voluntarily left camps to salvage their homes and livelihoods have been forced to return to camps, due to poor living conditions and infrastructure.
Members of the Yazidi community have repeatedly shared that many people have left Sharia and other camps, instead of returning to their places of origin, taking dangerous and illegal routes to immigrate to Europe because of poor living conditions.
Mandira Sharma, a lawyer, and human rights defender, warned during the Lalish conference that the government could be held accountable for failing to protect IDPs after pushing them out of the camps and into a dangerous situation if they know their lives might be at risk.
Following the Islamic State (ISIS) takeover of large swathes of land in Iraq from 2014 to 2017, around 1.8 million Iraqis, predominantly from the Sunni-inhabited provinces and Baghdad, were sheltered in the Kurdistan Region.
Yazidis, a vulnerable population in Iraq, were subjected to countless heinous atrocities, including forced marriages, sexual violence, and massacres when ISIS captured Sinjar in 2014, bringing destruction to many villages and towns populated by the minority group. Many Yazidis were forced to flee to displacement camps across Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, where many still remain.
