Baghdad repatriates 65 more Iraqi refugees from Turkish cities

Iraq’s Ministry of Migration and Displacement (MoMD) on Thursday announced the return of 65 Iraqi refugees from Turkey as part of an ongoing purported “voluntary” repatriation return scheme.

“The ministry brought back another 65 refugees from Turkey within the framework the voluntary repatriation program,” said the Director-General of the ministry’s immigration department, Taleb Dosa.

The statement also explained that the “The migrants were transported through the Ibrahim Khalil border crossing in the Zakho district of the Kurdistan Region’s Duhok province.”

Similar to press releases publicizing previous batches of repatriations, the statement added that this was carried out in coordination with the Ministry of Transportation, which then returned the former refugees to their places of origin.

The director-general of the ministry’s immigration department reassured in a statement that the returnees were voluntary and “not forced” and that they had been living in the Turkish provinces of Ankara, Samsun, Konya, and Çorum.

Following the emergence of the so-called Islamic State and its expansion over much of Iraq in 2014, six million Iraqis were displaced, with thousands fleeing abroad to neighboring and western countries.

Many settled in the Kurdistan Region, straining the resources of the Erbil government’s already suffering economy amid budget cuts from the central Iraqi government and reduced revenues from oil sales.

Since the beginning of 2019, the federal government in Baghdad has facilitated the return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees to resettle in their hometowns.

Baghdad has also been accused of blocking some populations from their homes while forcing others into areas to which they were afraid, or otherwise unwilling, to return.

Thousands of refugees and IDPs continue to resist returning to their towns due to serious security concerns and a lack of infrastructure and basic government services.

The MoMD, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and other Iraqi governmental bodies have a longstanding policy to refuse the nonvoluntary return of Iraqi nationals from abroad.

SOURCE: Kurdistan24

 

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