IDP camps in Duhok still need help amid decreasing NGO assistance
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Duhok’s IDP and refugee camps are in need of much assistance, but that aid steadily is decreasing as NGOs and international organizations shift their focus to Mosul.
“We have nothing. I have 15 children. We have nothing. I have had a stroke. My two hands are disabled; they are burnt. I can’t even earn 5,000 [IQD] like this,” Ilyas Guhara, Yezidi IDP, told Rudaw.
Guhara has a family of 16. They were displaced to Duhok’s camps when ISIS was marching on Shingal, the Yezidi homeland.
The 60 NGOs which have worked in Duhok’s 21 camps to aid the IDPs cite their decreasing assistance as a reason for the fall in IDP returnees to their homes.
However, official KRG figures show that there still are more than 1,127,000 Iraqi IDPs in Kurdistan. More than 384,000 are in Duhok.
“There were some that would help us before. Now they have gone to Mosul. Those remaining don’t do much for us. They have packed up. We need a lot of things,” Bayan Shamo, a Yezidi IDP, told Rudaw.
Shamo added their camps are now outdated after four years and as such “need a change.”
The 50 NGOs which are still remaining in Duhok say that much still remains to do in there.
“We’re working to help Yezidi people and people living in IDP camps here in Iraq. And we need other NGOs to come back to keep working here because these people still need help. And so we need them to come and do their work and keep helping these people,” Alyssa Wesnitzer, the head of the financial unit of the Greater Change NGOs, told Rudaw.
With the beginning of the rise of ISIS, the war that followed, and massive displacement, there were 110 NGOs in the Duhok helping refugees and IDPs. There are now 21 camps in the Duhok province.
“We can point out to NGOs, whether the United Nations or other humanitarian organizations, and their much decreased funding. The assistance that was once provided is no longer there and is decreasing,” Salim Saeed, the media officer at Duhok’s Board of Humanitarian Affairs, told Rudaw.
Thus, without the help of the NGOs, most of the difficulty falls on the shoulders of the province and the governmental offices.