The administration of Dohuk Northern Province intends to transfer 250 displaced families from one of the villages to one of the camps for internally displaced persons IDP, after demands from some citizens to vacate their homes in which the displaced used to live for years.
These 250 families were displaced from Shingal (Sinjar) district home to the Ezidi (Yazidi community) following the takeover of their region by the extremist militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ISIS in August 2014 and settled in Siji village in Sumel district of Dohuk, and this month they were provided with accommodation in Kabartw camp for IDPs.
Dayan Jaafar, Director of the Department of Migration and Displacement and Crisis Response of the Kurdistan Regional Government KRG in Dohuk, told (KirkukNow), "Some of these families have been living for eight years in unfinished houses and places belonging to the residents of the village, and now they are demanding it, so we have allocated another place for the displaced.”
Jaafar expressed his gratitude to the owners of those houses, noting that the displaced would be transferred to Kabartw camp.
"250 new housing places were allocated in the camp, and the Iraqi Ministry of Migration and Displacement provided 250 tents, and the German organization (Care) provided assistance to these families."
He affirmed the relocation of the displaced from the village of Seji to the camp will be in several stages, and that "the process is voluntary and not compulsory."
Kabartw 1 and 2 camps in Sumel District are home to nearly five thousand displaced families, almost 24,000 people.
There are more than 664,000 IDPs in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq KRI, some of whom are staying under tents in 26 camps in Duhok, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah northern provinces.
(KirkukNow) was unable to obtain reaction from the families that will be transferred to the camp.
Khader Elias, who has been living in Kabartw camp for about eight years, explained to (KirkukNow) that about 70 new families have been settled in the camp and preparations are underway to receive other families.
There are 325,000 IDPs in Dohuk Governorate, 135,000 of whom are distributed in 15 camps, while 189,000 IDPs live outside the camps.
A large part of the displaced are reluctant to return to their areas of war-torn region due to the deteriorating security conditions, the lack of services and the destruction of the houses of the vulnerable community.
Seized in August 2014 by ISIS militants whom accused the Ezidis of being “devil worshippers,” Shingal has been the scene of tragedy: a genocidal campaign of killings, rape, abductions and enslavement, and the surviving community fled to safer-heaven IDP camps in the adjacent northern Kurdistan region.
