11.03.2008 - Source: US Department of State

Overall conditions for internally displaced in Kurdish region better than in rest of country; still, supplies remain critical ("Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2007") [ID 23820]

"Citing official KRG sources, UNHCR reported that IDPs within the KRG numbered more than 163,000 in September, with most arriving after February 2006. Hygiene and sanitation for IDPs were generally better in the KRG than in other areas; however, shelter, food, and other concerns remained critical, particularly for the large settlement in Qalawa, where families that have absorbed IDPs into their homes also faced difficulty."

Document(s): Open document

11.03.2008 - Source: US Department of State

Harsh humanitarian conditions for IDPs in Kirkuk governorate ("Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2007") [ID 23822]

"At year's end IOM noted that the IDP humanitarian situation in Kirkuk was especially dire when compared to other governorates. Only half of IDPs assessed in Kirkuk received any kind of humanitarian aid. IOM reported that of the 2,166 families (approximately 13,000 individuals) assessed in Kirkuk Governorate, 21 percent reported death or serious injuries. Moreover, insurgents controlled some areas and intimidated local communities and IDPs."

Document(s): Open document

20.11.2006 - Source: International Organization for Migration

Situation of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Mosul ("Iraq: Ninewa / Mosul post-February 22 emergency IDP monitoring and assessments, 20 Nov 2006"), Autor: International Organization for Migration (IOM) [ID 18235]

Document(s): Open document

04.11.2006 - Source: International Organization for Migration

Tameem / Kirkuk: Report on situation of IDPs ("Iraq: Tameem/Kirkuk Post-February 22 emergency IDP monitoring and assessments, 04 Nov 2006"), Autor: International Organization for Migration (IOM) [ID 18256]

Document(s): Open document

03.05.2005 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

Focus on increasing displacement in Kirkuk ("original document (English)") [ID 10817]

"The Iraqi city of Kirkuk has been the scene of ethnic tension since the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003. The recent return of Kurds who were forcibly removed by Saddam has added to local problems and led to the displacement of Arab Iraqis sent there as part of the former government’s Arabisation of the key oil city. Increasing numbers of the existing local population were now leaving according to officials and NGOs working in Kirkuk, 255 km north of the capital, Baghdad. A local government official, who did not want to be named, said that nearly 16,830 Kurdish families have moved to the city since March 2004 and were living in old government buildings or were camping on the outskirts of Kirkuk, waiting to return to homes they said they had been evicted. The official confirmed that an additional 830 families had joined the group three weeks ago, putting further pressure on Arab residents of the city to leave. (...)"

Document(s): original document (English)

24.02.2005 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

Northern Iraq: Mixed picture for IDPs in the north ("original document") [ID 10818]

Information about situation and statistics of IDP, particularly in Diyala and Kirkuk area

Document(s): original document

25.10.2004 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

Kirkuk: Political, ethnic tensions halt IDP resettlement in Kirkuk ("original document") [ID 10819]

"International NGOs planning major projects to help internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the northern city of Kirkuk have had to suspend work after an agreement reached by the city's three main ethnic groups collapsed amid mutual recriminations.

In the absence of any leadership on the part of the central government in Baghdad, and with the number of families returning since last year's war swelling to an estimated 14,000, the leaders of Kirkuk's Kurdish, Turkoman and Arab communities came together this July to set up an IDP committee.

At first, the new body's work went well. But with over 3,000 families, mainly Kurdish, living in tents, and the city's stadium and 20 of its schools full of IDPs, the situation became untenable.

By mid-August, committee members had agreed that they should work with the international forces and NGOs to concentrate IDPs in two places in the city: the disused military camp at Faylakh and an area on the Kirkuk-Laylan road, freeing up public buildings and land occupied by squatters, in some cases, since the previous summer.

NGOs were to be given free rein in constructing houses and basic infrastructure at the two sites. Then, a month ago, the agreement broke down.

In a city where inter-ethnic politics often reportedly resembles a game of Chinese whispers, the details of the split are not entirely clear. One senior US military official closely involved in the committee described it as a "silly quibbling over details".

"Kurdish representatives argued that areas of temporary settlement should be extended beyond the two agreed areas," he told IRIN in Kirkuk. "Their Turkoman colleagues insisted Faylakh and Laylan should be filled with IDPs before looking elsewhere. The Arabs backed them up."

It was at that point that the Turkoman representatives walked out of the committee.

Widely seen as a moderate, Tahsin Kehiya, secretary of the Kirkuk branch of the Iraqi Islamic Turkoman Union and head of Kirkuk's city council, gave a similar analysis.

"I don't think anybody would oppose the return of people forced out by the former regime," he told IRIN in Kirkuk. "But that return must not be done at the expense of anybody else. That is why we agreed on Faylakh and Laylan, both state-owned land, to build temporary accommodation."

But he also complained that IDPs continued to return in an arbitrary way, cooperating only with the Kurdish authorities that are strong in the northern half of the city, rather than with the local government as a whole.

Like everybody else, he added, Iraq's Kurdish parties had political designs on oil-rich Kirkuk. It was this, he explained, that made their ongoing distribution of land in Faylakh and elsewhere so provocative.

"My feeling is that the dispute can only be resolved by good cooperation," he said. The Turkoman delegates on the IDP committee had another suggestion: the formation of a multi-ethnic commission to verify IDPs' claims to have lived in Kirkuk before allowing them back to the city.

The form to be used by the commission is in the process of being drafted. It is the concept, though, that irks the Kurds.

Kurdish officials deny giving Kirkuk returnees the money and building materials they have handed out to families returning to other Arabised areas whose Kurdishness is beyond doubt. But they acknowledge that, faced with the failure of either the Coalition authorities or Baghdad to do anything to "remedy the injustices" of Arabisation as promised in this March's Temporary Administrative Laws, they have done nothing to prevent people going back.

"That doesn't mean some of the returning families have never lived in Kirkuk," said Rizgar Ali, IDP committee member for the Sulaymaniyah-based Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). "The only people claiming that are former Baathists and the racist Turkoman parties."

He was referring to the Iraqi Turkoman Front, an umbrella of staunchly nationalist parties known for their close links to Turkey.

"I was kicked out of Kirkuk in 1963 and my children were born in Sulaymaniyah, with Sulaymaniyah written on their ID cards," he added.

"According to this form they are preparing, I would be allowed to come back, but they would not. Is that fair?"

Despite the two sides' strong language and apparently diametrically opposed positions, officials said they thought a new compromise was not far off. Others are less sure.

As one international NGO worker following the negotiations put it: "On paper, there is a new agreement, but it appears the old cracks are just papered over. We need a stronger resolution than that, before we can start working."

It's a pessimism shared by Irfan Kerkukli, secretary of the Iraqi Turkoman People's Party and a member of Kirkuk's city council.

"The major issue in Kirkuk is that both Kurds and Turkomans feel that historically they have been wronged," he said. "To overcome the problems that causes, we need as much outside help as we can get, starting with Baghdad.""

Document(s): original document

11.10.2004 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

Kirkuk: Family level support for Kirkuk IDPs ("original document") [ID 10820]

Document(s): original document

28.09.2004 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

Mosul: Residents return to Tal Afar ("original document") [ID 10821]

"Fighting between foreign fighters and US-led Coalition troops three weeks ago caused between 20,000 and 100,000 people to flee from their homes (...) The Turkish Red Crescent set up tents 5 km outside the city to provide temporary shelter, food and water to the predominantly ethnic Turkmen community residing there."

Document(s): original document

23.09.2004 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

Kirkuk: Focus on continuing displacement of Arabs in Kirkuk ("original document") [ID 10822]

"There are reports of the continuing displacement of Arabs from Kirkuk in the north of Iraq, many of whom are living around old military bases 10 km north of the city, according to local aid agencies.

Others have taken refuge in abandoned schools inside Kirkuk or in small villages after being forced out by the Kurds.

"The Kurds have been forced by Kurdish officials to return to the city before a national census takes place in October 2005," officials of the Islamic Arabic Union in Iraq told IRIN in Kirkuk. The organisation is helping the displaced by providing food, but say that much more aid is needed.

"We lost everything," Khalid Raja, 46, an Arab father of six living in an abandoned school, told IRIN in Kirkuk. "They do not have the right to take us away from what we have built on the land. We cannot live in these conditions. We are all suffering from the heat and are afraid because we are living in an open space and anyone can enter this building at any time," he
added.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said there were difficulties in assisting the displaced Arabs since they were widespread and their numbers were not known. "This situation should be taken care of by the government as soon as possible," Ahmed Rawi, an ICRC spokesman, told IRIN in Baghdad.

Arabs have been living in Kirkuk since the 1970s when Saddam Hussein started his Arabisation programme, putting members of his ethnic group into oil rich areas and displacing Kurds that had dominated the city of Kirkuk.

However, since Saddam was ousted in April 2003, Kurds have been returning to reclaim land. In addition, US troops were accompanied by Kurdish fighters (Peshmerga) when they took control of Kirkuk last April, giving the impression that the Kurds could go back and take control of the area, rather than living together with Arabs.

The Kurdish government says its aim is to ensure a favourable ethnic balance before the start of a national census and a planned referendum on Kirkuk's future, to be held in early 2005 as part of the national election.

Some international observers have raised concerns about the tense ethnic situation and warn of further displacement.

"Unmanaged returns can lead to ethnic strife and political instability [in the north]," Roberta Cohen, senior fellow and co-director of the Brookings School of Advance International Studies (SAIS) project on internal displacement, told IRIN in an earlier interview. She noted that Kurdish displacement would be protracted since it could take months to resolve the competing property and land claims.

There are reports that Kurds are moving back to the city and are waiting for houses in tents, in the hope that houses are being vacated.

"There were more than 800 here but every day dozens more are arriving," Kharish Rozbayani, who deals with resettlement issues under the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, told IRIN in Kirkuk. "More then 250,000 Kurds were forced to leave here for the sake of Saddam's inspiration of independence, and we are preparing to get our rights to return to our land," Rozbayani said. "We are from Kirkuk and we are back now," he added.

Many of the displaced Arabs have gone to live with relatives in southern Iraq, particularly Nasiriyah and Basra, but others who don't have a place to go are living in unused or damaged buildings, according to some humanitarian organisations.

Their living conditions are said to be bad due to the absence of sanitation and potable water. Some Arabs claim they didn't have time to move their belongings as the Kurds pushed them out. "Saddam forced us to go in and now the Kurds have forced us to leave, and we didn't get anything but suffering for our family," Ahmad Abo-Abdu, 55, whose displaced family now lives at the military base near Kirkuk city, told IRIN.

Arab leaders in Kirkuk claim that some people refusing to vacate their houses have been abducted by Kurds. "The [political]parties are pushing the population back and trying to kick out the Arabs," Mohammed Khalil al-Jaboury, 38, an Arab city council member, told IRIN. He added that the local authorities in Kirkuk were not doing anything to help them and had made
false promises.

"The central government must solve the problem and I think that it will take a really long time since some of them [the displaced] have nowhere to go. We are working out what to do, but there is little we can do for them since the places where they were living are now under the control of the Kurdish people," the Kurdish governor of Kirkuk, Abdul Rahman Fatah, told IRIN.

An Iraqi NGO working for the homeless has said that the situation is becoming critical and that the government needs to take immediate action to prevent discontent from turning into violence. "Arabs started to get angry and want their rights, the right to have a home and we are really afraid that things may turn nasty," Abbas Kubaissy, spokesman for the NGO, told IRIN.

The Ministry of Migration and Displacement said it has been trying to find out how many families have left Kirkuk and gather information about those left displaced around the city, but that it will take time.

The government has established the Iraqi Property Claims Commission (IPCC), which started accepting claims this June. The idea is to restore property to its original owner while providing some sort of compensation to those forced to leave.

The problem is that no one knows exactly how it will work in practice as no cases have yet been adjudicated. Funding is also a problem, according to officials. The commission currently has a budget of US $180 million for claims all over the country. But if a claim involves multiple owners who have all made improvements to the property, one claim could be worth up to a million dollars.

According to a Human Rights Watch report in August this year, more than 6,000 land claims had been reportedly lodged at IPCC offices in 10 of Iraq's 18 governorates since the fall of Saddam."

Document(s): original document

22.09.2004 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

SULAYMANIYAH: Shelter for displaced Iranian Kurds ("original document") [ID 10823]

"With work nearing completion on a new housing complex in the town of Barika, some 45 km south of Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq, an end is in sight to the plight of 250 Iranian Kurdish families who spontaneously left the Al-Tash refugee camp in the western Al-Anbar governorate, saying conditions there had deteriorated."

Document(s): original document

17.09.2004 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

Diyala: Political IDPs on the rise in Diyala governorate ("original document") [ID 10824]

"An estimated 11,300 residents of the towns of Khanaquin and Mandeli in the Diyala governorate in northern Iraq are occupying a football stadium and tents near Baqouba in the south of the governorate, after being forced out of their homes.

Residents not considered ethnically Kurdish or Turkmen were asked to leave their houses by the governor of Diyala province recently, Safah Hussein, internally displaced persons coordinator at the Iraqi Ministry of Migration and Displacement, told IRIN.

“Their situation is very bad. They need a lot of things,” Hussein said. “Every time we go to check the situation, there are many more people.”

In general, Iraqis who originally moved to northern Iraq under former president Saddam Hussein’s “Arabisation” programme have been under attack since the regime fell in April 2003 and US-led troops came in. But the number of homeless people has risen rapidly in recent weeks, he said.

People complain to government officials that peshmerga, a militia run by northern Iraq politicians, come to their homes and tell them to leave, Hussein said. Officials agreed that peshmerga have approached people on an “occasional” basis, he said.

Under an interim Transitional Administrative Law written by US-led administrators and approved by a former appointed government in November, Arabs who were not from the region could be asked to leave, Rahin Mohammed Amin, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) office in Baghdad, told IRIN. The PUK’s leader Jalal Talabani controls the northeast region in question.

Amin said he didn't agree that the governor of Diyala should force people out, but felt that a turnabout was fair play for a group of people who had forced his family and others to leave their homes over the last 30 years.

“Saddam wanted to change the ethnic make-up of this place. He didn’t do it in a legal way,” Amin said. “We aren’t saying Arab people can’t live in Kurdistan. We just don’t want them to live where they never lived before.”

People who have been “newly introduced to specific regions or territories” can be resettled, compensated or given land nearby, according to the Transitional Administrative Law. The law also says no final decisions can be made about houses and property before a government is elected and a new Iraqi constitution is approved. An election for a national assembly is scheduled to be held before the end of January. In recent days, US military officials, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and others have suggested compromises to deal with the increasingly dangerous security situation in Iraq.

“I am from Khanaquin, and we were kicked out by the Arabs,” Amin said. “That wasn’t done legally. We can solve this legally with negotiations now.”

Ministry of Interior officials are expected to make a final decision about the land, Amin said. But to complicate matters, “hundreds” of Kurdish people have been forced out of houses in the towns of Ramadi and Samarrah in the insurgent-heavy “Sunni Triangle” north and west of Baghdad. Many of them want to return to their homes in the northeast region, Amin said.

“We were all forced to switch to other cities when it was not our desire,” Amin said. “Now, we have a right to return back.”

Meanwhile, ministry officials will open an office in Baqouba to look after the displaced people, Hussein said. Iraqi workers for the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) were also helping the displaced people, he said. Heating oil for the winter months had been distributed to them this week, he added.

Aid agencies in the past have fixed up some buildings for families to live in and provided clean drinking water, Hussein said. DRC workers could not immediately be reached - Hussein said foreign workers left the city following a car bomb in Baqouba about a month ago."

Document(s): original document

06.08.2004 - Source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Kirkuk: thousands of displaced Assyrians, Kurds, and Turkomans ("original document") [ID 10825]

"HRW WARNS THAT VIOLENCE MIGHT ERUPT IF PROPERTY CLAIMS ARE NOT RESOLVED. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a 78-page report released on 3 August (http://www.hrw.org) that violence might erupt in northern Iraq if property-claim disputes are not resolved soon. The report, "Claims in Conflict: Reversing Ethnic Cleansing in Northern Iraq," documents the situation for thousands of displaced Assyrians, Kurds, and Turkomans who are living in dire conditions as they await a resolution to their claims. The organization notes that thousands of displaced people have returned to the city of Kirkuk since the fall of the Hussein regime in order to reclaim their homes and lands that were occupied by Arabs from southern and central Iraq as part of the former regime's Arabization policy.

"Kurds are flocking back to Kirkuk, but the city has little capacity to absorb them," Sara Leah Whitson, executive director of HRW's Middle East and North African Division, was quoted as saying in a press release posted to the website. "If these property disputes are not addressed as a matter of urgency, rising tensions between returning Kurds and Arab settlers could soon explode into open violence." The Arabs, meanwhile, are facing similar conditions, as many have been internally displaced over the past year. Some fled their homes and others were evicted by returning Kurds. They remain in the vicinity of Kirkuk, living in makeshift shelters, HRW reported.

According to the report, the Iraqi Property Claims Commission established by the former Coalition Provisional Authority has done little to help alleviate the crisis. Some 6,000 claims have reportedly been filed in 10 Iraqi governorates, "but the judicial mechanism put in place for the adjudication of these property disputes has still not been implemented," HRW said. In addition, the commission's statute does not indicate where Arab settlers are to be resettled; many have lived in Kirkuk for some 30 years. "The process of seeking redress for the displaced Kurds and others must not lead to new injustices against Arab settlers," Whitson said.

Widespread clashes could be on the way. Kirkuk Council head Tahsin Kihyah said skirmishes continue to break out in the Al-Bashir village as a result of the property disputes, "Hawal" reported on 7 August. The Turkoman returnees have demanded that Arab settlers vacate the village. Last week's clashes were the fourth since July. "If Arab settlers don't vacate the village, there will be dire consequences. That is why I need to stress that a just solution should be found before it gets out of hand," Kihyah said.

"Al-Mashriq" reported on 2 August that the Al-Mansur Construction Company has broken ground on a 600-unit residential complex in Banjah Ali, located about 10 kilometers south of Kirkuk. Some 25 local companies are taking part in the project, which is expected to be completed within 180 days. The project will provide homes to some 100,000 displaced Kurds, the daily reported."

Document(s): original document

08.2004 - Source: UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Report on the current security and legal situation, material safety, displacement situation, human rights and protection situation as well as an overall analysis ("Country of Origin Information (COI) paper on Iraq (as of August 2004)") [#24717],  [ID 10827]

"In the North, there are, among others, the Kurds, Turkmen and Assyrians who were victims of both the “Arabization” and Anfal campaigns, the Kurds who were displaced as a result of the war between the main two Kurdish parties (the PUK and KDP), and Iraqis of different ethnic and religious backgrounds who opposed the former regime and had to flee their governorates. The UN estimates that a total of 805,505 individuals (141,234 families) were displaced in the three northern governorates over a thirty- year period. The majority of this group (approximately 74%) were displaced between 1974 and 1990, while the remaining (approximately 26%) were displaced post 1990. 42% of the IDPs originate from former Government of Iraq cont rolled areas and were primarily displaced as a result of expulsions carried out by the former regime that aimed to change the ethnic balance of the population in resource-rich regions such as Kirkuk 4. The remaining 58% originate
from within the three semi-autonomous Kurdish areas (Dahuk, Erbil, Sulaymaniyah), displaced primarily as a result of inter-Kurdish fighting.

Cause / Period / Percentage
- Expelled as part of the Arabization campaign 1974-1987 46%
- Victims of the Anfal campaign 1988 28%
- Expelled due to the Arabization campaign Early 1990 7%
- Returnees from Iran unable to return to place of origin in GoI territory Early 1990 5%
- Displaced as a result of fighting between PUK and PDK Early-mid 1990’s 9%
- Displaced as a result of conflicts with PKK 1980s and early 1990s 2%
- Others 2%

Of this group, it is estimated that 98,000 families have very poor living conditions, with 13,354 families residing in extremely harsh conditions, seeking shelter in abandoned public buildings, military compounds or under tents. Approximately 12% or 96,000 people of the total group are particularly vulnerable and include widows, elderly, orphans and disabled. Since the collapse of the former Government, significant spontaneous return movements of IDPs has taken place to Governorates bordering Kurdish autonomous areas, formerly controlled by the Central Government; primarily to Tameem Kirkuk. In April 2003, as
the Peshmerga forces traveled south to Ninewa and Tameem with Coalition forces, non- Kurdish IDPs who had settled in the three northern governorates of Sulemaniyah, Dohuk and Erbil faced harassment including the destruction of their housing, thus forcing them to move south in order to reclaim property and land. With intervention in May/June 2003 from various actors including UNHCR, this overt push ceased. However, various push factors continue to be exerted on the most vulnerable to return to areas south of the green line. It is estimated that 26,000 individuals have returned to Kirkuk city and the surrounding areas but are unable to return to their villages due to property disputes or destroyed shelter."

Document(s): Open document

08.06.2004 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

New housing project for displaced people ("original document") [ID 10826]

Information about the tens of thousand IDP from the north who have been displaced after the fall of the regime. Housing is desperately needed.

"BAGHDAD, 8 Jun 2004 (IRIN) - Men in blue overalls laying the concrete foundations of new apartment buildings in the hot noon-day heat are the new face of Iraq's largely stalled reconstruction effort. They're slapping concrete between the boards of the foundations to hold them together. Piles of steel girders rest between the foundations, along with sacks of dry cement.

The construction site, off a highway just north of Baghdad, is a hive of activity with men wiring together metal stanchions and mixing cement. Engineers stand in the sparse shade of a nearby building watching over the construction crews.

The new housing project appears to be the first major housing construction in Iraq in over a year, according to figures from the Ministry of Housing and Reconstruction. Previously, Coalition forces had cleaned up and repaired some bombed buildings. They've hired contractors to rebuild walls, patch roofs and put new fixtures in the bathrooms of ministries and some other government buildings.

All told, however, construction projects - whether residential or commercial - that were on the drawing board or under way when US-led forces swept into Iraq 14 months ago have been stalled until now.

When it's all finished, the almost 300 new units will be the start of the housing needed for an estimated 70,000-100,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) who were kicked out of houses in northern Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Most were living in former Iraqi army bases and other unused government buildings. The project cost was originally estimated at US $4.7 million; it could now be twice that because of increases in the prices of materials in the last year, said Sabah Sablir, general manager of the project. US administrators are paying for the construction, he explained.

"The housing issue is an enormous one here," Omar al-Faruk al-Danaluji, the new minister of housing and reconstruction, told IRIN in Baghdad. "Even when we finish all of the residential projects we have planned, it will only represent 1 percent of the housing we need." There are an estimated one million displaced people in Iraq, with some 800,000 in the north, according to official statistics.

More recently, fighting in the city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, also increased the numbers of displaced as homes were destroyed. According to estimates in April 2004, more than 50,000 were displaced. Aid agencies and government officials estimate the need of nearly 1 million houses in order to meet the needs of displaced people.

Lack of housing is just one of the most visible reconstruction needs in Iraq. Even though millions of dollars in donor aid have been pledged to the country, on the ground Iraqis complain that they haven't seen much change since US-led forces swept into the country a little more than a year ago.

Electricity cuts are still common and rubbish is often piled in the street. Worse, now, is the volatile security situation, with regular explosions or gunfire in the capital and other big cities.

"The thing is, up until now, we didn't see money pouring into the country to create jobs," al-Danaluji said. "But now, I think we will witness a construction revolution in Iraq."

Al-Danaluji knows the figures - international donors have pledged $33 billion to rebuild Iraq. The US Congress alone has pledged $18.4 billion. He said he didn't understand what was taking so long for the money to arrive.

Security problems cause foreign investors and donors to stay away, a vicious cycle that has caused more security problems, al-Danaluji said. "It's much more difficult to start the train than when it is rolling," al-Danaluji said. "But as the projects start, more people will work, and the situation will get better."

Displaced people aren't the only ones who need new homes, al-Danaluji said. Many people are still returning from Iran, who had been forced out under the former regime. And many buildings that were neglected under the former regime should be knocked down and rebuilt, al-Danaluji said.

Similar apartment building complexes will be built in Karbala, in southern Iraq, and Kirkuk, in the north, with projects recently approved by US administrator Paul Bremer. Up to $15 million is allocated for each site. Six new construction projects will start very soon, said Akeel al-Ansari, deputy minister at the ministry of housing and construction.

"Income from oil revenues will help us a lot in the rebuilding this country," al-Danaluji said. "Iraq is extremely rich in natural resources. Give us a chance and we will definitely do the reconstruction we need.""

Document(s): original document

01.03.2004 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

North Iraq: IDPs in Kirkuk living in poor conditions ("original document") [ID 10828]

Information about living conditions of IDPs.

Document(s): original document

19.02.2004 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

Arabs face displacement by Kurds ("original document") [ID 10829]

Information about some 100,000 Arabs who have been forced to leave ethnically mixed areas of northern Iraq since the ousting of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.

Document(s): original document

19.01.2004 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

Focus on desperate Kirkuk IDPs ("original document") [ID 10830]

"(...) (People are) sheltering in a former sports stadium in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, one of more than 1,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) who have nowhere else to live. (...)

As part of Saddam Hussein’s Arabisation process, thousands of Kurdish families were forcibly moved from the area and replaced by Arabs from the south and centre of the country. (...) In the (last) eight months, 340 other families have built crude mud shelters outside the stadium and around its running track. (...)"

Document(s): original document

05.01.2004 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

Special report on IDPs ("original document") [ID 10831]

"(...) With an estimated 900,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in Iraq, humanitarian organisations are putting the emphasis on providing proper shelter in the coming year for homeless people uprooted by the troubles that have plagued the country not only over the past year but the past few decades.

Of this figure the majority, some 400,000 live in what are called 'collective towns' or purpose built settlements. Another 300,000 live in homes and the rest are in government or other types of accommodation.

While there are no current accurate statistics at present, based on pre-war figures, the largest population of between 600,000 and 800,000 IDPs are living in the north with up to an estimated 100,000 in the south and centre, many with limited access to basic facilities. Prior to the second Gulf War a UN Habitat survey found that 40 percent of the displaced had no access to health care and that only some 57,000 people were living in adequate housing.

With some signs of IDPs returning following the fall of Saddam Hussein, as of the beginning of June 2003, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has confirmed up to 40,000 registered IDPs in the south and central governorates, with other sources suggesting up to 75,000. Aid agencies say that although some IDPs have returned home it is very difficult to establish exact figures due to a lack of staff on the ground because of insecurity.

Today, Iraq is struggling to give hundreds of thousands of IDPs a roof over their heads as the situation of insecurity continues to be of major concern. In this IRIN special 2 part report on IDPs, we look into the past and present situation of displaced people in a country which potentially has a very uncertain future.

SITUATION IN THE NORTH

After 12 years of autonomy it would be easy to think that the north of Iraq, known as Kurdistan by most of its residents, had fewer problems than the south and centre of the country which continued to endure Saddam's regime until earlier this year. But the reality is that the three northern governorates of Mosul, Arbil and Dahuk still have huge problems and needs - none bigger than somehow solving the situation of between 600,000 and 800,000 IDPs, with the cities of Mosul and Kirkuk being home to the largest numbers.

The problems have existed for decades, but the last 20 years have seen the worst displacement in the north. First there was the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war when Kurds were expelled to Iran and people fled border areas as fighting intensified.

Then came Saddam Hussein's Arabisation campaign and suppression of uprisings forcing not only Kurds but Turkmens and Assyrians out of their homes. The programme saw Arabs from southern and central Iraq induced to move north to Kurdish cities. Frequently Kurds were kicked out of their homes to make way for the new arrivals.

At the end of the war with Iran, Saddam launched the horrific Anfal campaign that saw villages burnt and bulldozed as punishment for the Kurds' resistance. His authorities relocated hundreds of thousands of villagers to collective towns that were little better than concentration camps according to inhabitants.

Unable to leave the towns and with no access to arable land, Saddam had destroyed the people's livelihoods and made them economically dependent on the regime in Baghdad. But even the establishment of a Kurdish government following the 1991 uprising did little to stop new IDPs being created.

Internal fighting between the two main Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) as well as battles along the Turkish border by the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) with Turkish military, all saw more people forced from their homes.

Ironically, the war this year that toppled Saddam Hussein's regime did not result in the huge new numbers of IDPs that were feared. Those who did leave their homes before or during the fighting returned relatively quickly. But what the war did precipitate was a hope for thousands of mainly Kurdish IDPs that they could at last return to their villages, towns and cities and rebuild their homes and lives.

And in doing so it clearly showed the scale of the problem. For so many people returning home, there were no resources to rebuild their lives. Therefore as the first snows of winter hit the region, thousands of families are living in tents or in mud hovels.

Manija Mohammed Sayeed has been an IDP for 16 years, displaced three times and is still no closer to returning to her home let alone finding a house to live in.

Squatting outside the mud shelter she lives in at the former international sports stadium in the northern Iraq city of Kirkuk, she said having hope is hard, especially when the memories of recent years hurt so much.

In 1988 she was evicted from her village of Qaitool south of Kirkuk as part of Saddam Hussein's Anfal campaign that destroyed 4,500 villages in the Kurdish north of the country. The rest of her family and villagers disappeared and were killed.

Eventually she got a job near Tikrit but was imprisoned and evicted from there to a collective village near Kirkuk set up by Saddam's authorities. Life here was miserable and as soon as the Iraqi regime collapsed in April, she shifted back to Kirkuk, ending up living in the sports stadium with over 1,000 other IDPs.

While the Kurdistan Regional Government, United Nations and NGOs have reconstructed many villages, the problem is still vast
as Brandon Pustejovsky of US NGO Mission East told IRIN in the northern governorate of Arbil, it was not just a matter of building houses for those returning to their homes.

Rather, an entire package was needed which included schools, health facilities, water and sanitation and a means to make a living for the residents.

In the village of Ekmala an hour's drive from the northern city of Dahuk, Mission East has built 32 homes for residents whose village was destroyed in the Anfal campaign. But it is just one village among hundreds that still need reconstruction and help. "I just wish we could provide that comprehensive a solution to more villages," Pustejovsky said.

Fakher Maraan, the Kurdistan Regional Government's Deputy Minister of Reconstruction and Development, told IRIN in Arbil that the IDP situation was by far the biggest problem his government faced.

Nearly 200,000 IDPs in the north were still living in the collective towns they had been shifted to by Saddam's regime. In Arbil governorate and nearby Kirkuk alone there were more than 45,000 IDP families. Maraan estimated another 1,500 villages needed to be rebuilt across the north of Iraq to accommodate them.

But he also stressed the need for long term solutions not just emergency help to provide food and shelter for families. While a simple house could cost about US $4,000, when costs of water, sewage, power, roads, health centres and schools were added in, the price per residence in a reconstructed village could rise to US $12,000 or US $15,000 in remote regions.

While the north had many skills and resources, it needed help from abroad because the problem was so vast, he said. However, he worried that the international community considered the north of Iraq was comparatively well off after years of self-government.

"But I have a very bad message for them - they don't understand." He said the UN administered Oil-for-Food Programme had given people hope that they could return to their place of origin, but many were finding there was no help despite the new freedoms.

On the outskirts of Arbil, thousands of people still live in the collective town of Binaslawa. Ali Hamid was kicked out of his village of Khalid Barziani in 1988 by Saddam's forces and moved to Binaslawa. Formerly a farmer, he was forced to sell second hand clothes to survive.

Fifteen years later he is still there, now with a small store selling cigarettes and sweets. He has visited his village but everything remains destroyed. At present he lives hand to mouth and has no way of paying to rebuild his old life. So he waits in Binaslawa for someone to provide him with somewhere to live and a way to make a living.

"I would love to go back to my village to live and I still hope to be able to - until I die I hope to go back. It is my land and the land of my father and grandfather." One of 80,000 IDPs living in Binaslawa, he is luckier than many. Thousands have no income and live in tents or mud shacks. They rely totally on the monthly food distributions under the Oil-for-Food Programme now being administered by the new Iraqi ruling authority backed by the US Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). (...)

However, further to the north the spectre of continuing IDP problems raised its head recently. At a protest of several thousand people in Kirkuk, marchers called for Arabs who had shifted to the city during the Arabisation process to leave and go home.

In a country that has seen so many forced from their homes and so much suffering because of this, it appears the sad story of displacement may be set to continue unless large amounts of international reconstruction aid are forthcomming."

Document(s): original document

26.12.2003 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

IDP have a hard life in north-eastern Iraq ("original document") [ID 10832]

"(...) In 2001, Biyara was taken over by the hardline Islamic group Ansar al-Islam. Many residents fled the northeastern mountain village, which lies near the border with Iran border, only returning after US-led forces had pounded the Ansar fighters out of their stronghold. When the residents returned, they found that most of their houses had been destroyed by the Ansar or the Coalition shelling.

(...) More than 100 houses were rebuilt by the NGO Dutch Consortium, but with so many more people coming to Biyara, a tented camp was set up for another 150 families on the steep hillside near the village centre. Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) together with the Kurdish NGO Civilisation Development Organisation (CDO) have obtained funding to build another 100 houses, but with winter having begun, construction has stalled."

Document(s): original document

16.12.2003 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

Confusion over IDPs in government buildings ("original document") [ID 10833]

"IDPs who steal government infrastructure must be treated as thieves, say the housing, of urban affairs and displacement, foreign and interior ministers."

Document(s): original document