SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – Officials in Sulaimani say that, as winter approaches, Baghdad has agreed to 3 billion Iraqi dinars (about $2.5 million) for the Kurdish province to help with the huge number of refugees it has taken in from other parts of war-torn Iraq.
Abdulxaliq Muhammad, a general manager in the Sulaimani provincial council, told Rudaw that the central government had agreed to the sum to ease the economic burden from the nearly 2 million refugees now residing in camps across the region, most of them from Syria.
“We will receive the amount in cash but it will be spent on projects dedicated to the refugees,” Muhammad said.
Around 58,000 Arab families from other parts of Iraq have taken shelter in Sulaimani province in the past year, since an ISIS offensive in neighboring Arab provinces.
Muhammad, who accompanied Sulaimani Governor Aso Faridon, to Baghdad, said that Iraqi officials had vowed to help Sulaimani build schools and facilities for the refugees. It has also promised fuel, especially kerosene, which is widely used to warm homes in the region.
Most of the refugees in Sulaimani come from Iraq’s Sunni areas -- Anbar and Salahadin provinces in particular -- who chose the safety of the Kurdish-controlled areas over Baghdad, which has a predominantly Shiite population with an uneasy relationship with the large minority Sunnis.
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