Iraq closes 20 IDP camps in Anbar, as most residents leave
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – On Sunday, the Iraqi Minister of Displacement and Migration announced the closure of 20 camps in Anbar province, after most of their residents returned to their homes, and authorities relocated the rest to two other facilities.
Anbar previously contained 70 camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs), at which close to 70,000 people resided in 2014 when the so-called Islamic State overran and took control of about a third of Iraq. As the terrorist organization continued to lose its territorial holdings, many of the facilities gradually closed down, leaving only 22 until recently.
The government is shutting down twenty more, according to Minister Ivan Faeq Jabro, leaving only two major facilities.
Jabro said in a press conference held in Anbar that the government would consolidate the shuttered camps into two central facilities and that all IDPs will relocate to those camps, according to a statement issued by the official's media office.
Jabro said that the move comes as most IDP families have returned to their places of origin, after spending nearly six years in the facilities. She noted that a total of 1,706 families remain displaced in Anbar province.
Jabro also claimed that the return of IDPs to their homes is the government's priority. "We will do our best so that thousands of our people will not have to face severe weather fluctuations."
Since early 2019, the federal government in Baghdad has facilitated the resettlement of large numbers of refugees and IDPs to their areas of origin.
Iraqi officials have repeatedly been accused of blocking some populations from their homes while forcing others into areas to which they were afraid, or otherwise unwilling, to return, as documented by Human Rights Watch.
Read More: Iraq blocks displaced families from returning home, forces others to return: HRW
Amnesty International, too, alleged that Baghdad was forcefully returning IDPs and sternly called on authorities to end the practice.
Read More: Amnesty' extremely disturbed' with reports of forced return of IDPs in Iraq
Thousands of refugees and IDPs continue to resist returning to their towns due to serious security concerns and a lack of infrastructure and basic government services.
Iraq's Ministry of Migration and Displacement, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and multiple other Iraqi governmental bodies have a longstanding policy to refuse the non-voluntary return of Iraqi nationals from abroad. This includes those in European nations and the United States, both of which have often exerted considerable diplomatic pressure in recent years for Iraq to accept them.
Editing by Khrush Najari