Iraq - IOM Director General William Lacy Swing is today ending a three-day visit to review IOM’s operations in northern Iraq and meet with Kurdish leaders and partner agencies struggling to cope with the influx of thousands of people displaced by the conflict in neighbouring Iraqi governorates.

In Kalak, 50 km from the Kurdish regional capital of Erbil, he joined local mayor Khalid Aziz Karim at an IOM distribution of IOM non-food aid, WFP food and UNICEF hygiene packages to 200 displaced families, who told him about their daily struggle to survive.

“I had just finished building a new home for my family. Then the armed opposition groups threatened us. I knew we had to leave in order to stay alive,” said Sader Deen, a father of seven young children, who fled Mosul two weeks ago.

“We live in a school here in Kalak. Only water is available – until today we had nothing and were living off the kindness of the local community. I hope that the security situation will improve in Mosul so that we can return there. Everything is there – my job as an Arabic teacher, my home, my entire life,” he added.

In Erbil Ambassador Swing met with Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, Head of Foreign Relations Falah Mustafa and Minister of the Interior Karim Sinjari. He also met senior UN officials to discuss how to further improve inter-agency cooperation to help vulnerable internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Since clashes broke out on June 6th in Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, violence has quickly spread to other areas of the country causing massive population displacement.  So far, IOM has distributed relief packages to over 25,000 people forced to flee their homes.

Over the next six months, IOM will expand its programming and continue to provide relief that addresses the most urgent needs of displaced families across Iraq through the distribution of 50,000 non-food (NFI) aid kits and 6,750 shelter units. 

It will also implement programmes to combat tuberculosis, provide income generation training, develop renewable energy infrastructure, and develop a variety of other quick impact projects (QIPs) that directly benefit internally displaced families and their host communities. 

IOM will also continue to identify the location of vulnerable families and assess their priority needs through its Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM), with a view to providing essential support and basic aid items to some 483,000 displaced people throughout Iraq.

For more information please contact

Lado Gvilava
IOM Erbil
Tel: +39 083105 Ext 2965
Mobile: +964 750 436 2132
Email: lgvilava@iom.int