Arrivals have increased in the last two years, there are about 17,000 more Syrians than in 2019

picture © Gianmarco Maraviglia

 

 

There are currently 329,500 refugees in Iraq, of whom 247,305 are from Syria, according to UNHCR figures. About 39% of Syrian refugees live in camps in Iraqi Kurdistan (KRI) a region located in the northern part of the country, which includes the governorates of Erbil, Duhok and Sulaymaniyah. Following the Turkish invasion in 2019, there has been an increase in departures in Northeast Syria, in fact according to the INTERSOS Protection Manager in the KRI, Ahmet Ibrahim, arrivals in the KRI have increased by approximately 17,000 Syrian refugees.

 

INTERSOS operates in the governorate of Erbil, both in urban areas and in the refugee camps of Darashakran, Kushtapa, Kawargosk and Barisma. There are two projects ongoing in the region, one on protection, that is psychosocial support and legal assistance to vulnerable people, and one on education. Both target asylum seekers and refugees. Most of the Syrian people assisted are Kurds by ethnicity, as the KRI is the only accessible destination for people fleeing from north-eastern Syria, but there are also Iranian and Turkish refugees as well as some Palestinians and Sudanese.

 

The protection project, conducted by INTERSOS in partnership with UNHCR, ensures access to legal advice, provides assistance to the large number of refugees waiting to obtain documents and offers support in court representation, including for detained refugees. In terms of awareness-raising activities, the projects deal with different issues related to the needs of Syrian refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan, such as how to apply for marriage and birth certificates, which are the legal procedures in the different governorates’ offices, but especially how to obtain residency permits.

 

Legal documentation as an identity challenge

 

As we have observed in other countries in the Middle East, the demand for legal documentation becomes a challenge of identity and resilience for Syrian refugees. Ahmet Ibrahim explains: “The protection projects are complemented by others focusing on education, since there are so many boys and girls living in refugee camps in Iraqi Kurdistan. The difficulties faced by Syrian refugee children in Iraq are many. Most of them are of Kurdish ethnicity, whose official language is the Kurmanji Arabic dialect, as opposed to Iraq where the Sorani Arabic dialect is spoken. This posed a major challenge for all those arriving for the first time in KRI and enrolling in school”. Therefore, according to Ahmet “With the advocacy efforts of humanitarian organisations, the KRI government has so far changed the curriculum to Kurdish, implementing this change gradually, from the first grade onwards so that children can start their education in one language, and older children have time to adapt. It seems to me that the situation is improving in this way”.

 

A second challenge for boys and girls enrolling in school relates to civil documents. Ahmet explains “Children born in KRI receive their birth certificates from hospitals or the government, however, for these documents to be ratified in Syria, they must be ratified and verified by the Syrian embassy in Baghdad. The problem is that Syrian refugees in KRI cannot move to the Iraqi federal territories and consequently cannot go to the embassy either. Moreover, most Syrian families, having connections within Syria, register their children in Syria as if they were born there. This has created an impasse because on the UNHCR certificates it says they were born in Iraq, but on the birth certificate the place of birth is Syria. Once they reached school enrolling age, the schools were skeptical about accepting the children because of their dual place of birth”. INTERSOS is also active on this front, working with UNHCR to get the KRI birth certificates ratified in Syria.