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Baghdad offers cash incentives to returnees
June 03, 2011
BAGHDAD: The Iraq government is hoping some of the 3,000 families squatting in Ugaili’s new neighbourhood will return home and is offering $3,500 cash to each family to help them move.
At a government office for the displaced in eastern Baghdad, 44,000 families have registered, about 80 per cent of whom had moved out of other neighbourhoods in the Iraqi capital.
An estimated 1.5 million Iraqis left their homes during the brutal sectarian slaughter that saw tens of thousands killed in 2006-07.
The government wants to end the displacement by the end of this year, either by permanently resettling displaced Iraqis in new homes or returning them to their old ones.
For many of those who fled, the decision is simple.
Asghar Al Moussawi, Iraq’s Deputy Migration and Displacement Minister, said more than 52,000 internally displaced families have already returned home, most of them from Baghdad, and many more were expected to move soon, as security improved.
“We expect a big number (of displaced families) to return to their areas after June, during the school vacation,” Moussawi said.
Iraq risks a return to massive street protests when a 100-day deadline for progress expires next week, experts say, with no core issues having been addressed and a summer heatwave coming.
Calls have already been issued for demonstrations after June 7, when the 100-day timeframe given by Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki to his cabinet concludes.
Jasim Jubayer Al Ugaili recalls with obvious pain the night he and his family fled their home in western Iraq, carrying the threatening letter that drove them away: “Either leave within 72 hours or die.”
Reuter[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
June 03, 2011
BAGHDAD: The Iraq government is hoping some of the 3,000 families squatting in Ugaili’s new neighbourhood will return home and is offering $3,500 cash to each family to help them move.
At a government office for the displaced in eastern Baghdad, 44,000 families have registered, about 80 per cent of whom had moved out of other neighbourhoods in the Iraqi capital.
An estimated 1.5 million Iraqis left their homes during the brutal sectarian slaughter that saw tens of thousands killed in 2006-07.
The government wants to end the displacement by the end of this year, either by permanently resettling displaced Iraqis in new homes or returning them to their old ones.
For many of those who fled, the decision is simple.
Asghar Al Moussawi, Iraq’s Deputy Migration and Displacement Minister, said more than 52,000 internally displaced families have already returned home, most of them from Baghdad, and many more were expected to move soon, as security improved.
“We expect a big number (of displaced families) to return to their areas after June, during the school vacation,” Moussawi said.
Iraq risks a return to massive street protests when a 100-day deadline for progress expires next week, experts say, with no core issues having been addressed and a summer heatwave coming.
Calls have already been issued for demonstrations after June 7, when the 100-day timeframe given by Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki to his cabinet concludes.
Jasim Jubayer Al Ugaili recalls with obvious pain the night he and his family fled their home in western Iraq, carrying the threatening letter that drove them away: “Either leave within 72 hours or die.”
Reuter[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
