ERBIL, Kurdistan Region —A new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report accuses the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of “arbitrarily” restricting the movement of residents of Makhmour refugee camp in an apparent act of retaliatory collective punishment.
Camp residents are being subject to restrictions that prevent even the most vulnerable of residents from leaving, including pregnant women requiring emergency hospital treatment.
“Authorities can’t just punish everyone in a camp because some people may be sympathetic to the PKK when there’s no evidence they committed a crime,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s Middle East director.
“These arbitrary restrictions on camp residents are keeping them from reaching jobs and health care,” she added.
According to the report, repressive measures are said to be implemented as a response to the killing of Turkish consulate staff in Erbil, some 60 kilometers away, on July 17. The attack was blamed on the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), a Kurdish armed rebel group who has fought for greater Kurdish rights in Turkey for four decades.
The killings interrupted KRG efforts to implement peace talks between Turkey and the PKK.
Most of the 12,000 camp residents are Kurds forcibly displaced from their homes in southeastern Turkey by military operations against the PKK. As such, authorities have perceived residents to be sympathetic to the group.
Turkish forces have undertaken bombing campaigns in Makhmour - including the refugee camp - claiming it is home to PKK positions.
Though inhabited since the early 1990s, the site was not officially registered as a refugee camp by the UNHCR until 2011, which granted camp residents refugee status and associated, if limited, rights.
In an official response to Wednesday's report, Dr Dindar Zebari, KRG Coordinator for International Advocacy denied people had been unable to access hospitals, claiming instead that their journey is facilitated by the authorities.
"The patients who cannot be treated at the health center in the camp and need to visit hospitals in cities for treatment have in no way been prevented from doing so. They are helped to visit hospitals,” he said in a statement.
While he said student movement was not restricted - with those attending universities and institutes travelling "daily" - he made no reference to workers with accreditation being denied entry from the camp into the Kurdistan Region.
He attributed prohibited refugee movement to "unofficial armed groups" who "interfere in the management of the camp."
"The Regional Government in no form is part of the management of the camp, and there are no security forces of the Regional Government in the area," Zebari said.
Restrictions on movement are being exacerbated by an Iraqi federal government halt to idenitity card renewal for refugees since 2014, leaving camp residents without the right "permission ID" to move through checkpoints into the Kurdistan Region.
"Permission to renew [the permits] can be made by the federal government, not the regional government,” Zebari stated.
However, camp residents who spoke to HRW said they had been prevented from travelling within the Kurdistan Region even when they had the required documents.
At least two women are known to have miscarried after being prevented from leaving the camp to access hospital treatment.
“An officer told my husband that the checkpoint has instructions not to allow anyone from the camp into Erbil,” one woman told HRW. “I was in the car losing blood, but the officer looked at me and said I was fine.”
On her way back from the checkpoint, the woman miscarried.
“When I lost my baby, it was sad moment and I also felt like I might die at that moment and no one would care. Since then I still haven’t had any proper medical treatment,” she added.
“It should not take mothers losing their babies for KRG authorities to realize these restrictions are excessive,” Whitson said. “It is shocking that authorities have not put an end to restricting the movement rights of some of Makhmour’s refugees.”
Camp residents have been permitted to travel to cities under federal Iraqi control– but residents cited fears for their safety.
Under international law, the KRG may only limit the movement of people living in the Region – nationals or otherwise, if the restriction is “provided by law … and necessary to protect national security, public order, public health or morals, or the rights and freedoms of others.”
Restrictions must be “non-discriminatory and proportionate” to the restriction’s purpose, the report added.
International law also prohibits making freedom of movement “dependent on any particular purpose or reason for the person wanting to move.”
The KRG authorities have previously been accused by the New York-based human rights group of blocking thousands of Sunni Arabs displaced by ISIS violence from returning home to villages around Mosul.
