Duhok IDP camp catches fire
A fire swept through a camp in Duhok province housing internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Shingal (Sinjar) in the early hours of Friday, burning at least 17 caravans without resulting in any casualties.
Pir Dayan, head of the Joint Crisis Coordination Center’s (JCC) Duhok branch, told Rudaw that the fire in Amedi’s Dawdia camp has left at least 17 families without a home as all the belongings inside them have been burned.
JCC teams are working on providing the families with tents and other necessities as soon as possible, according to Dayan who added that they are also still investigating the incident as the cause for the fire remains unknown.
Dawdia camp houses 486 families, numbering 2,440 individuals, over 1,000 of which are under the age of 18, according to data provided by the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) on November 2022.
Fires are a common occurrence in the Kurdistan Region’s displacement camps.
Thousands of Yazidis still remain in IDP camps despite Islamic State (ISIS) being driven away from their lands, as their homes are in need of reconstruction. The presence of several armed forces in the Yazidi heartland of Shingal is believed to be one of the key obstacles before the returning of people to the district.
