ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Over 350 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) residing in Erbil have returned to their homes in the Nineveh and Salahaddin provinces, a spokesperson for the Iraqi Migration ministry told Rudaw on Friday. Ali Abbas, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Displacement and Migration, told Rudaw’s Hastyar Qadir that 67 displaced families of 379 persons residing in the Bahrka camp in the north of Erbil province have left for their homes on Thursday. Abbas noted that there are still about 20,000 families residing in the IDP camps across the Kurdistan Region. 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 has been 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). Earlier this month, the ministry met with a Kurdish delegation and UN representatives to discuss mechanisms for the safe return of displaced persons. Jabro said that Baghdad decided to halt its legal proceedings due to cooperation from the KRG in implementing a plan “to close the camps and fully resolve the displacement issue.” Baghdad has offered four million dinars (about $3,050) to families who voluntarily return to their homes. 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.”
