Running in Your Own Land: Baharka Refugee Camp

They’re homesick in their own country. They’re angry, they’re vulnerable, they’re Internally displaced persons (IDPs). Unlike refugees, IDPs have not crossed an international border to find sanctuary but have remained inside their home countries. In refugee camp Baharka there are mainly Iraqi refugees, fleeing from Islamic State (IS) terror militia which are occupying their hometowns. The camp near the Kurdish capital Arbil in Iraqi-Kurdistan, which is not an official camp by the government in Baghdad, is now their hometown – canvas covering a ten square kilometre small room under a concrete building is their home. The neighbors are just a thin meadow away, also refugees. But they are lucky compared to other refugees, protected from the always shining sun below the building. Refugees are mainly living in tents standing on rubble and sand. Because of the heat inside they are trying to find shade beside. “It’s so hard to make them believe that they are refugees now”, said Rebaz Baban, a 30-year old worker for the UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency. Some of the IDP’s are Palestinians, Turkmen or Syrian – they fled to Iraq, now they’re on the run again.