HALABJA, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iraq will launch a set of programs in 2025 aiming at the reintegration of displaced persons returning from displacement camps, Ali Abdullah, an official in the Iraqi National Security Council said on Friday.

Abdullah told state media that the plans are being developed in support of a decision by the Iraqi government “to close all camps in Iraq.” 

The projects come less than a week after Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani on Saturday announced the launch of 14 infrastructure and rehabilitation projects in Sinjar district and the Nineveh plains, aimed at encouraging the voluntary return of internally displaced persons (IDPs).

According to the Iraqi parliament’s Committee on Migration and Social Reconciliation in May 2024, there were around 800,000 to one million IDPs in and outside camps across Iraq, “with some residing in the Kurdistan Region's camps and others in Nineveh, Anbar, outskirts of Baghdad, and other provinces.”

Abdullah added that the programs will be implemented in 2025 with the aim of reintegrating “returnees into their communities of origin.”

Regarding Syria’s Al-Hol camp, Abdullah said that “16,000 Iraqis remain there” and the focus is on them. 

Located in the Hasakah province in northern Syria, Al-Hol is one of the largest camps, hosting approximately 40,000 displaced people from different nationalities, including families of Iraqi, Syrian, and foreign ISIS militants.

Iraq and the UN have an agreement to return Iraqi nationals from Syria’s Al-Hol camp by 2027.

Earlier in March, Iraq repatriated over 600 women and children with links to ISIS from Al-Hol, marking the sixth repatriation this year and the 22nd since Iraq began repatriating its nationals from the notorious camp, just over a month after Iraq received the fifth batch in February, consisting of 569 individuals.

Iraq has repatriated 12,000 Iraqi nationals from the Al-Hol camp so far, while around 3,000 Iraqi "terrorists" were brought back from northern Syrian prisons, National Security Advisor Qasim al-Araji said early February.