Iraqi Transport Ministry to repatriate Turkey refugees

BAGHDAD, 31 Mar 2018 [Fik/News Sources]: The Iraqi government on Friday tasked the Transportation Ministry with repatriating Iraqi refugees still living in Turkey.

“Government agencies are working hard to restore normal life in recently liberated areas and encouraging displaced people to return to their homes,” Iraqi Migration Minister Jassem al-Jaf said in a statement.

He added that the government’s Supreme Committee for Displaced Persons had tasked the Transportation Ministry with bringing Iraqi refugees back home from displacement camps in Turkey.

Iman al-Jubouri, head of Civil Society Organizations in Mosul, a local human rights NGO, said conditions in certain parts of Mosul -- liberated last year from Daesh -- were making it difficult for refugees to return.

The return of displaced persons to Mosul, she said, “requires the immediate restoration of basic services in these areas and the removal of landmines and unexploded ordnance”.

In recent months, thousands of Iraqi refugees in Turkey have voluntarily returned to their home country with the help of Iraq’s Transport Ministry.

The Turkish government, meanwhile, says more than 200,000 Iraqi refugees still remain in Turkey.

During Iraq’s three-year war with the Daesh terrorist group (from 2014 to 2017), an estimated 5.7 million Iraqis were forced to flee their homes.

According to Iraqi government figures, more than half of these have since been repatriated.