Arab, Kurdish IDPs return home in Zumar

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – A Kurdistan Region official stated on Tuesday that hundreds of Arab and Kurdish families have returned to their homes in Zumar and surrounding areas.

Dindar Zebari, Head of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Monitoring International Reports Committee, announced in a press conference that 2,000 Kurdish and Arab internally displaced persons (IDPs) have returned to their homes.

Zebari explained that the areas were liberated from Islamic State (IS) insurgents and cleared of mines and bombs by Peshmerga forces.

“From September 2015 to May 2016, 128 families who fled from Mosul to Syria and returned have been received by Peshmerga forces,” he said. 

“These families have now settled around Zumar while others have moved to Duhok and Sulaimani,” the KRG official continued.

According to Zebari, many Arab families who were living in Zumar, northwest of Mosul, had left the area to join IS and now it is difficult for them to return home.

“Some Arab and Kurdish families who are currently settled in Zumar do not want to go back to their villages surrounding the area, fearing the bombs planted by IS and lack of public services,” Zebari added.

In early 2016, Amnesty International released a report about the human rights violations in northern Iraq, stating that there has been “mass destruction in Peshmerga-controlled Arab villages.”

According to the report, Peshmerga prevented the displaced Arab families from returning to their liberated territories. However, the KRG rejected all accusations made toward Peshmerga forces by Amnesty International.

“The Peshmerga have liberated large swaths of territory from [IS] and have helped civilians regardless of their ethnic and religious backgrounds,” Zebari previously told Kurdistan24.

Editing by Ava Homa and Karzan Sulaivany