ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – All four camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees in Erbil province are now full and cannot take any more people fleeing Mosul, according to the director of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) office managing the camps. 

“Hassan Sham, Khazir, Chamakor, and Sewdinan camps in Erbil province are full. They cannot accommodate any more refugees,” Hoshang Mohamed, director of the KRG’s Joint Crisis Coordination Centre, said on Tuesday.

The only place where the Kurdistan Region that can accommodate more IDPs and refugees is Duhok province, which has space for another 8,700 families, he added. And after that, “We cannot take in any more IDPS from Mosul after this is filled.”

Mohamed told Rudaw English on Monday that 155,117 IDPs have arrived in the Kurdistan Region since the Mosul offensive began on October 17 last year. 

According to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 286,020 people are currently displaced due to the Mosul offensive.

Greater numbers have been fleeing west Mosul on a daily basis than did during offensives in the east side of the city, leaving the UN and aid agencies struggling to keep up. “If pace of displacement accelerates further, to be absolutely frank, it’s going to stretch us to a breaking point,” the UN’s humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande warned in mid-March. 

The UN is constructing spaces around the clock, she said.

The west side of Mosul is more densely populated than the east side. Grande also noted that families displaced by the ongoing fighting report there is “much more destruction.”