Some 68 Iraqi citizens who were displaced by war and other conflicts and took refuge in neighboring Syria a decade ago are now setting off to return to their home thanks to Türkiye’s humanitarian diplomacy.
The Turkish and Iraqi Foreign Ministries, the Iraqi Migration and Migrants Ministry and Türkiye’s Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) are coordinating the plan that will return voluntary Iraqi citizens to their homeland.
The Iraqi refugees on Monday crossed Tal Abyad in opposition-held northern Syria to Türkiye from where they boarded buses headed for Iraq.
IHH's Humanitarian Diplomacy Unit’s Mehmet Altıntaş said the agency has overseen the return of hundreds of Iraqis since the start of the year and nearly 10,000 in total since the initiative began.
“We are very proud of this. As the IHH, we want no woman or child away from their home or country,” Altıntaş told Anadolu Agency (AA), noting that most of the displaced are women and children.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis fled to Syria in 2014 when the Daesh terrorist group seized Iraq’s Mosul, Anbar and Salahaddin provinces at its peak.
After Türkiye launched Operation Peace Spring in October 2019 to drive out the PKK and its Syrian offshoot the YPG from northern Syria, hundreds of displaced Iraqis fled PKK/YPG-occupied regions east of the Euphrates River and took refuge in opposition-held regions near the Turkish border.
There are still thousands of Iraqis, among Syrians and other foreign nationals, in YPG-controlled camps in Syria, especially the overcrowded al-Hol camp.
The PKK/YPG seized much of northern and eastern Syria from Daesh with U.S. backing. They have since held thousands of Daesh terrorists in prisons, while their wives and children – numbering in the tens of thousands, many of them foreigners – are living in camps.
Turkish operations continue to regularly target the PKK/YPG presence in Syria, as well as northern Iraq where the PKK has its stronghold.
