Issues

Iraq

"Going Home? Prospects and Pitfalls for Large-Scale Return of Iraqis" - A Brookings Report on Iraqi Refugees

Brookings Institute
Posted on Wednesday July 15, 2009

There is a lot of talk these days about the prospects for the large-scale return of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) to Iraq. More than four million Iraqis have been displaced, either internally as IDPs or externally as refugees. Most fled their communities since the US invasion in 2003 and especially in the aftermath of the sectarian violence that erupted after the bombing of the al-Askari mosque in Samarra in February 2006. While the Iraqi and US governments, policymakers in the region, and humanitarian actors assume that most will return to Iraq in the near future, experience with other displacement crises indicates that return will be neither automatic nor straightforward.

Click here to download the full report from the Brookings Institution’s website.