17,000 displaced returned to Mosul in past 2 months: Iraq

A total of 17,000 Iraqi displaced people have returned to their homes in the eastern part of Mosul in the past two months, government officials said.

Iraq's Minister of Displacement and Migration Jassim al-Jaaf said on Saturday that some 17,000 people returned to their homes in the districts of al-Hamdaniya, Bashiqa, Bartella and Nimrud, all east of Mosul, Efe news agency reported.

"Most of the basic services have been restored in the eastern part of Mosul, where 90 per cent of the neighbourhoods already have electricity, compared with only 30 to 40 per cent of areas in the western part," Hussam al-Din al-Abar, a council member of Nineveh, said.

Al-Jaaf pointed out that although such figures of IDPs returning to Mosul were not very significant compared with those who were forced to leave their homes; it was a "good start" to encourage the ministry to offer aid to increase the number of citizens returning home.

The International Organization for Migration said on July 14 that clashes between the armed forces and extremists forced more than one million people to flee their homes during the nearly nine-month offensive, which led to liberating the Iraqi city in July.

A large number of IDPs, who fled fighting in the western part of Mosul, are currently in the eastern sector of the Iraqi city, which was the main bastion of the Islamic State terrorist group in the Arab county since June 2014.

--IANS

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