Publication

30 June 2015

Iraq: IDPs caught between a rock and a hard place as displacement crisis deepens

Iraq: IDPs caught between a rock and a hard place as displacement crisis deepens

As of June 2015, at least 3.1 million people had been displaced by conflict in Iraq since January 2014 and 8.2 million were in need of humanitarian assistance. As in previous conflicts, civilians have been directly targeted by all warring parties and continue to constitute the majority of casualties.

Violence against civilians has driven three million people into internal displacement in just eighteen months. In 2014 alone, Iraq suffered the highest new internal displacement worldwide, with at least 2.2 million displaced. This has exacerbated the destructive legacy of some 35 years of conflict and international sanctions which have left infrastructure in disarray and about one million living in protracted displacement, mostly in Baghdad. 

The ability of displaced people to access safe areas of refuge has been dramatically restricted by the fragmentation of society along sectarian lines and security threats linked to terrorism and counter-insurgency. The Kurdish-controlled north including Kirkuk city, hosts more than a third of Iraq’s internally displaced persons (IDPs) – some 1.2 million as of June 2015, including minority groups. Some 611,700 Sunni Arabs displaced from areas under the control of the Islamic State (ISIL) now find themselves with few safe locations to flee to. Sunnis from areas controlled by ISIL have increasingly been denied the possibility of fleeing to areas controlled by the Government of Iraq (GoI) or by the pershmerga (the militia forces in Iraqi Kurdistan), thus having no choice except to return to areas controlled by ISIL. This has further cemented the division of Iraq into, Kurdish, Sunni and Shia entities.    

Humanitarian access to areas beyond government or Kurdish control remains limited with IDPs in these areas being extremely hard-to-reach. In areas accessible to humanitarian organisations, assistance has been com-plicated by lack of documentation, and administrative challenges. Funding shortages resulting from lower oil revenues have seriously limited the capacity of the national authorities to respond. Other Middle Eastern crises (notably in Syria and Yemen) and donor fatigue have diminished prospects of sufficient international assis-tance to meet IDPs´ humanitarian needs.