Humanitarian engagement with armed groups has long been a defining feature of the International Committee of the Red Cross' (ICRC) work. Direct contact and dialogue with armed groups, enable access to territories and persons they control, and allow the ICRC to assist people affected by armed conflict.
15 Apr 2021
Since the Government of Iraq declared that combat operations against the Islamic State Group (IS) had ended in 2017, Iraq has been recovering from the significant damage and destruction caused by the armed conflict. Of the more than six million Iraqis who fled their homes since 2014, 4.78 million Iraqis have returned to their area of origin and 1.28 million remain internally displaced. Many Iraqis have returned to areas that lack basic infrastructure, services and livelihood opportunities, or where explosive devices have not been cleared. Other challenges returnees and secondarily displaced people face include the lack of security, community acceptance, housing, property and civil documentation issues as well as critical educational and health service gaps. Throughout this, Iraq continues to host over a quarter of a million Syrian refugees.