ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – A Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) official on Thursday slammed Baghdad for treating the issue of internally displaced persons (IDP) and refugees in the Kurdistan Region as a political matter instead of a humanitarian one.

Srwa Rasul, head of the KRG’s Joint Crisis Coordination Center told The New Region that Iraq's Ministry of Migration and Displaced is "complacent" in the matter of refugee and IDPs, accusing Baghdad of "treating it not as a humanitarian issue, but rather a political issue."

Rasul further added that the ministry "does not try to resolve the issues of the IDPs so that they can return to their homes," while lauding the Kurdistan Region for "undertaking a great responsibility at the hardest time" by receiving an influx of refugees and asylum seekers. 

According to the latest data by the JCC, the Kurdistan Region is currently home to over 855,000 refugees and IDPs, with Duhok housing the largest number of the Region's provinces at over 381,000 persons. They have been distributed over 27 camps across the Region at an annual cost of over $200 million to Erbil. 

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) found in a report in March that 90 percent of the approximately 338,000 refugees in Iraq are Syrian's who have sought shelter in the Kurdistan Region. 

The report detailed that “Over 70 percent live in urban areas alongside the host community while the remaining are in nine camps in the KR-I [Kurdistan Region of Iraq].”

In addition to the exodus of Syrians due to civil war and the threat of the Islamic State (ISIS), the Kurdistan Region also houses hundreds of thousands of IDPs, who fled to the Region in large part after the rise of ISIS in 2014 in Iraq and Syria.