Iraq intends to end 'displacement file' through voluntary return of IDPs, minister says

Iraq’s Minister of Migration and Displacement Evan Faek announced her intention to end the IDP crisis in the country and secure the voluntary return of displaced families.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iraq’s Minister of Migration and Displacement Evan Faek announced her intention to end the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) crisis in the country and secure the voluntary return of displaced families.

The comments were made following Faek’s visit to several displacement camps in the Kurdistan Region’s Duhok province on Monday.

In her statement, she explained that programs for the return of IDPs “need substantial support” as they lack “financial allocations” from the Iraqi government’s 2020 budget.

Despite the challenges, Faek said the government intends “to close the displacement file by ensuring the voluntary return of the displaced families.”

The Minister expressed her concern at the lack of reconstruction and rebuilding in some of the provinces that had been liberated from the so-called Islamic State despite “the allocation of nearly half a trillion IQD from the Ministry’s 2019 budget.”

Regarding the Yezidi IDPs from Shingal, Faek said families want solutions to the many problems in Shingal district, the most important of which is the lack of an administrative unit that establishes service institutions for citizens.

The Minister also noted that the Kurdistan Region has the most camps in the region compared to Iraq, especially in Dohuk province, which has received the bulk of IDPs since 2014.

The Ministry previously announced that 6,000 displaced persons had returned to their homes in Shingal district over the past two months in coordination with authorities at camps Bajed-Kandal, Qadia, Bersef, and Darkar in Duhok.

The western areas of Nineveh province, in particular, witnessed an increase in the number of IDPs returning to their homes, but they faced several issues, such as lack of electricity, security, and health services.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany