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Iraq: Stopping gov’t grants hindering return of Sinjar IDPs

January 20, 2025 at 10:38 am

Iraqi Yazidi displaced people sit on the ground during sunset in Sharya camp for Yazidi internally displaced persons (IDPs) some 15 kilometers from the northern city of Dohuk in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. [Ismael Adnan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images]

Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) returning to the Iraqi city of Sinjar, west of Nineveh Governorate, complained that they had not received the financial grants allocated to those returning.

The Iraqi government had previously decided, through the Ministry of Migration and Displacement, to grant four million Iraqi dinars ($3,054.99) to each displaced family returning to the city of Sinjar, along with providing them with basic household supplies, as an incentive for IDPs to return.

Mayor of Sinjar, Nayef Saydo, said in press statements on Saturday that “most of the internally displaced people returning to Sinjar did not receive the four million dinars, and some of them did not even receive the 1.5 million dinars, and this is what the returning citizens are complaining about.”

“The failure to disburse these amounts has led to the discontent and worry of the displaced, and the process of returning the displaced is currently suspended.”

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For his part, Sharif Salman, a member of the Migration and Displacement Committee in the Iraqi Parliament, told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that “there are clear and major shortcomings by the Iraqi government when it comes to the file of the IDPs returning to their original areas and those who have not returned, despite all of the promises made to resolve this issue since last year. The issue of the displaced and their inability to return is still ongoing.”

He noted that “not giving the financial grant to the returning displaced persons will lead to preventing the return of the rest of the displaced, especially since it is a very small amount compared to the tragic conditions that the displaced have been exposed to, as their homes were destroyed, stolen, among other things.” He called for “distributing this grant without further delay.”

On 29 January 2024, the Iraqi Ministry of Migration and Displacement revealed that more than 10,000 displaced families, or more than 100,000 people, had returned to their original areas, including 5,600 families to Sinjar. Sinjar, which is close to the Iraqi-Syrian border and also the Turkish border, is populated by a mixture of Iraqi Yazidis, Arabs and Kurds, distributed over three administrative districts.