Displaced Iraqis face tragic conditions due to militias

Eslam Mohamed

Despite the official Iraqi government’s recent announcement stating the closure of all the camps that were set up to accommodate the displaced, they have not yet returned to their cities and villages due to the continued dominance of sectarian militias over those areas by force of arms, especially in Nineveh Governorate, from which huge numbers of citizens were displaced and have been unable to return due to the collapse of the security situation in the places from which they fled.

About 1.5 million Iraqi citizens have fled from different governorates to settle in the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq, which is separate from the authority of the central government in Baghdad and hosts many displaced refugee camps.

The displaced preferred to reside in the Kurdistan region away from their original cities and villages to escape the oppression of armed terrorist militias that cannot enter the territory. They suffer very tragic conditions in the camps in light of the low temperatures in the winter and bad weather conditions.

As for the displaced who were unable to enter the Kurdistan region of Iraq, some of them resorted to residing with their relatives in other, safer areas, or even moved to live in some mosques, even if only temporarily, until alternative housing was arranged.

It is estimated that about one million Iraqi citizens fled the country and went to Arab or foreign countries to escape the security collapse in their country.

Forced displacement

It is worth noting that many international organizations have accused the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) of causing forced displacement and committing war crimes against the Sunni civilian population in conflict areas. These militias also practiced identity killings at their checkpoints, which are spread throughout Iraq in isolation from government authorities.

According to observers, matters have reached the extent to which some of these militias possess their own secret prisons and control many places that the state’s authority does not reach, while these terrorist groups are the final authority in those places, and their leaders take independent decisions related to human lives and their destinies without referring to any government authorities, which has caused a great state of panic and insecurity that led many to flee from the places controlled by these militias.

With the spread of identity killings and the increase in the number of forcibly disappeared, many of the displaced were keen not to return to their homes and sought refuge in different areas in order to avoid falling into the cycle of being targeted by militias