IDPs in Kurdistan Region require almost $4M daily: KRG
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The tens of thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the Kurdistan Region require approximately $4 million to provide their daily cost of living, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Ministry of Interior said on Monday.
According to the KRG’s Joint Crisis Coordination Centre (JCC), there are 792,915 displaced individuals and 247,000 Syrian refugees who live within the Kurdistan Region.
“A total of 212,000 live in 29 camps inside the Kurdistan Region while the rest live inside the governorates of the host community,” the JCC reported.
“In July 2019, 1,303 individuals returned to their homes in the liberated areas while, at the same time, 748 individuals returned to the camps,” it added.
The daily expenditure of IDPs and refugees has reached USD 3.8 million, which the KRG along with 189 international and local organizations have to allocate, putting a financial burden on the Kurdish region’s recovering economy.
The data from JCC also indicates that 40 percent of the IDPs are Sunni Arabs, 30 percent are members of the Yezidi (Ezidi) minority, 13 percent are Kurds displaced from the disputed territories, seven percent are Christians, and 10 percent are ethnic minorities consisting of Turkmen, Shias, Shabaks, and Armenians.
Although over two years have passed since Iraq’s Mosul was liberated from the so-called Islamic State, people continue to leave their homes and return to camps inside the autonomous Kurdish region. Low-income jobs and unemployment, as well as security concerns, are among leading obstacles that prevent IDPs from returning to their hometowns.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany