ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Over 850 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) living in Sulaimani camps returned to their original places of residence in Salahaddin and Nineveh provinces, Iraq’s migration and displaced minister announced on Thursday.
Iraqi Minister of Migration and Displaced Evan Faeq Jabro on Thursday announced the return of 872 people from the Ashti IDP camp in Sulaimani, according to a statement from the ministry. Ashti camp is the last IDP camp that houses displaced persons in the Sulaimani province.
The IDPs returned to Salahaddin’s Yathrib district and the Yazidi town of Shingal in Nineveh.
“Based on the directives of the minister, the ministry's staff delivered financial grant checks amounting to four million dinars,” continued the statement adding that the returnees were given goods such as a TV, stove and refrigerator as well as relief material.
The return of the IDPs comes as the July 30 deadline set by the ministry to stop aid to the displaced persons and close the camps approaches.
In March, officials from the Iraqi migration ministry told Rudaw that it would stop all aid for the displaced persons in the Kurdistan Region by July 30, adding that the displaced persons would receive 4 million dinars [about $2,670] in aid as an incentive to encourage their return.
Iraq says there are over 30,000 IDPs from Iraq’s southern and central provinces living in the Kurdistan Region’s camps.
Despite the financial incentive, many IDPs are reluctant to return home because of continuing violence in their hometowns, a lack of reconstruction following the destruction of their homes, and little in the way of basic services. Some who voluntarily left the camps have been forced to return, because they could not secure basic needs in their hometowns.
The camps in the Kurdistan Region also suffer from a lack of funds. In December, a Sulaimani migration department official told Rudaw that residents of Arbat camp were moved to Ashti camp to save money after aid was cut off.
Earlier this month, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned against the planned closure of camps in the Kurdistan Region.
“The planned closure of displaced people’s camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) by a July 30 deadline will imperil the rights of many camp residents from the northern Sinjar [Shingal] district,” HRW said in the report.
“Sinjar remains unsafe and lacks adequate social services to ensure the economic, social, and cultural rights of thousands of displaced people who may soon be forced to return,” it added.
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 figures from the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Joint Crisis Coordination Center. The Kurdistan Region was hosting several million IDPs at the peak of the conflict with the Islamic State (ISIS).
