The number of Syrian refugees who have entered the autonomous Kurdistan Region since Turkey’s military incursion in northern Syria has reached over 19,000, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Joint Crisis Coordination Centre (JCC) said on Saturday.
In a post on its official Twitter page, the JCC reported that 25 new refugees arrived in the Kurdistan Region through the Sehela border crossing with Syria, taking the total number of arrivals to 19,018.
The number is in addition to the 226,000 Syrian refugees who were already living in Kurdistan.
Only 350 Syrian refugees, about 70 families, have left the Kurdistan Region voluntarily, JCC Director General Hoshang Mohammed previously told Kurdistan 24.
The current camps in the Kurdistan Region were built as a rapid response to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugee crisis emanating from the rise of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Over the past few years, the Kurdistan Region has been home to 1.8 million IDPs and refugees who fled from Syria and other parts of Iraq. Nearly four million Iraqis were displaced when the terror group emerged in northern Iraq in mid-2014.
The latest arrivals of refugees are being accommodated at the Bardarash and Gawilan camps in Duhok province.
SOURCE: Kurdistan24
