PM Masrour Barzani visits Syrian refugee camp in Kurdistan Region

The Bardarash camp currently hosts 2,619 Syrian refugee families, equivalent to about 12,000 individuals who fled to the Kurdistan Region.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on Saturday visited a Syrian refugee camp in Bardarash to discuss the needs and requirements with camp management and international and local organizations.

The Bardarash camp currently hosts 2,619 Syrian refugee families, equivalent to about 12,000 individuals who fled to the Kurdistan Region following a Turkish military assault on northeastern Syria.

During a speech upon his arrival at the camp, Prime Minister Barzani reminded that there are over one million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees who currently live inside the Kurdistan Region’s camps and host communities, adding the facilities require USD 1.5 billion to manage. 

The Kurdish leader thanked the organizations and aid groups at the camp, such as the Barzani Charity Foundation (BCF) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), for welcoming “our Syrian brothers and sisters.”

He also called on “the International community and the Kurdistan Region’s partners to aid the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) as it receives more refugees.”

According to the KRG’s Joint Crisis Coordination Centre (JCC), since the beginning of the Turkish offensive on Oct. 9, over 14,833 Syrian refugees have arrived in the Kurdistan Region, adding to the already 226,000 Syrian refugees that are currently living in the autonomous Kurdish region.

During his visit, Barzani also sat with some of the families inside the Bardarash camp to discuss their needs. He also distributed winter items to the refugees and gifts to the children at the camp.  

Over the past few years, the Kurdistan Region has been home to 1.8 million IDPs and refugees who fled from Syria and other parts of Iraq. Nearly four million Iraqis were displaced when the terror group emerged in northern Iraq in mid-2014.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany