ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi minister of migration and displacement on Wednesday said they will close down the last internally displaced persons (IDP) camp in Nineveh province this month, in coordination with the Kurdistan Region despite ongoing difficulties.
"The ministry has closed all camps for the displaced in all governorates, except for the camps of the Kurdistan Region," Minister of Migration and Displacement Evan Jabro told Iraqi state media (INA) on Wednesday. "This month will witness the closure of al-Jada camp, which is the last displacement camp in Mosul," she said.
Last year, the Iraqi government began a push to close camps around the country, three years after the defeat of Islamic State (ISIS), including camps in the Kurdistan Region. The government has been criticised for this policy with rights monitors calling instead for voluntary returns.
More than half of the IDPs in the Kurdistan Region’s camps are Sunni Arabs and Yazidis from Nineveh province that fled Iraq in 2014 when ISIS took vast swathes of territories.
Many IDPs are reluctant to return home because of continuing violence in their original areas, a lack of reconstruction following the destruction of their homes, and little in the way of basic services. Some who voluntarily left the camps to salvage their homes and livelihoods have been forced to return to the camps, unable to piece together the basics.
Baghdad has asked the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to close camps under its control, but Kurdish officials say they will not force IDPs to return home. The Kurdistan Region is currently host to over 664,000 displaced Iraqis, according to the KRG’s Joint Crisis Coordination (JCC) September data.
"The displacement in Iraq will not continue forever… and there is only one camp left in Iraq outside the Kurdistan Region and 26 camps in the Region," Jabro said. "There is coordination with Kurdistan to close the camps,” but with “difficulties” because there is “no will” from the Region to close its camps, she added.
Al-Jada, in Nineveh province in an area under federal Iraqi control, mainly houses families with suspected links to ISIS, and received ISIS-affiliated families from al-Hol camp in Syria late in May.
“After these families’ years in limbo, it is positive that the government is trying to find durable solutions for families displaced by fighting,” Belkis Wille, senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch said in June. “But this strategy will only succeed if it builds on lessons learned from previous camp closures and forced returns in which aid was cut off and people were left completely on their own,” she added.
Iraq’s camp closure left “at least 34,801 displaced people without assurances that they can return home safely, get other safe shelter, or have access to affordable services. Only two camps remain open in Baghdad-controlled territory, one in Nineveh and another in Anbar, and they are also set to close.” HRW said in June.
