Introduction
Between 2014 and 2022, Iraq grappled with huge numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs), comprising 16% of the population – many of whom experienced protracted displacement of three years or more. These displacements were predominantly caused by the onslaught of the so-called Islamic State (IS) and the subsequent war against the terrorist group. By late 2022, however, the number of IDPs had reduced dramatically, triggering the deactivation of the humanitarian cluster system – the management and coordination of the humanitarian response in Iraq by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The cluster system had categorised humanitarian and development actors and activities according to a series of core sectors, including health, water, education, and protection, with each cluster being led by a designated international non-governmental organisation (INGO) or agency. The cluster system is designed to ensure effective provision of assistance according to needs whilst also avoiding duplication of assistance and resource waste. Throughout 2023, the subsequent humanitarian transition saw the Humanitarian Country Team focusing on “enhancing government ownership by progressively handing over humanitarian operations and the coordination role to the line ministries in the Government of Iraq (GoI) and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).”
Contemporary Iraq presents a starkly different displacement landscape compared to a decade ago. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), during 2022, there were 32,000 Iraqis displaced by conflict and violence compared to 51,000 displaced by climate insecurity including natural disasters and extreme weather events.
As a result of the dramatic reduction in conflict-induced displacement, the GoI is firmly focused upon returning IDPs to their communities of origin and as such, has closed all IDP camps in federal Iraq. Meanwhile, the humanitarian transition and corresponding cessation of the Iraq humanitarian cluster mandate has resulted in a significant decrease in external funding and provision of in-country support by INGOs and their donors. This reduction in humanitarian operations and spending has, consequentially, reduced the services available to IDPs residing in camps across the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI).
The combination of camp closures in federal Iraq and reduced financial support for IDPs residing in camps across the KRI has acted as a driver of return, which many returnees perceive as coercive. Return was not a “choice” they would have otherwise made due to ongoing barriers to sustainable reintegration such as: violence and insecurity; poor social cohesion; damaged housing and infrastructure; explosive ordinance contamination; inability to access support and services; and absence of livelihood opportunities. These enduring barriers to effective return and reintegration illustrate the failure to provide genuine durable solutions to internal displacement in Iraq, and in many cases, has resulted in secondary displacement for IDPs who either did not wish to return, or could not return, to their communities of origin. However, despite these challenges, as of January 2024, the IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix recorded 4.9 million returnees across thirty-nine districts of Iraq.
While ‘nexus’ (humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding) actors and researchers have focused a great deal on barriers to return generally, as well as for specific groups, such as Yezidis, Christians, and perceived-IS affiliates who experience specific protection needs, other groups remain consistently omitted from humanitarian and nexus-oriented needs assessments and analyses. This article will draw upon existing academic and grey literature, coupled with research conducted by the author,[1] to illuminate the ways in which Iraqi Gypsy and Bedouin returnees have been overlooked, to the detriment of both protection and provision of other forms of support required for sustainable reintegration.
The frequent omission of Gypsies and Bedouin from humanitarian and nexus support and programming is demonstrative of the assumption that if a specific ethnic or social group is present within a certain geographic area, they will benefit from any humanitarian or development-oriented support provided within that location. However, such an assumption does not take into consideration community-level power dynamics, including social forces such as discrimination, exclusion, and stigmatisation, which, for Gypsies specifically, prevent access to much-needed services and support. Additionally, exclusion and/or oversight of Gypsies and Bedouin reinforces a hierarchy of citizenship which promotes sedentarism and conformation to majority-defined social norms whilst falsely conferring resilience, through which ‘nomadic’ peoples are assumed to have the capacity to simply move elsewhere. However, despite prevailing assumptions of nomadism, Iraqi Gypsies are rarely nomadic, and while some Bedouin may lead nomadic or semi-nomadic lives, for which they are reliant on established social and economic networks alongside established grazing routes, others may not be nomadic at all. However, this reality has been subsumed by the misperception that Gypsies and Bedouin are nomadic and that nomadic peoples are ‘hard to reach’, or worse. Thus their existence in Iraq has been completely overlooked by various nexus actors. Using Mosul and Nineveh as a case study, this article will highlight the need for more concerted efforts regarding needs assessments, research, and programme implementation that is proactively inclusive of Gypsies and Bedouin.
Causes of Displacement
Both Bedouin and Gypsies in Nineveh were affected by the dictates of IS, the brutality IS meted out to the population, and the violence of the ensuing war. However, causes of displacement, though often shared, also diverged between the two groups.
Gypsies and Dom[2] across Iraq and the KRI have experienced discrimination since the Ottoman era. In more recent decades they have experienced distinct waves of displacement and persecution at the hands of Saddam Hussein and various militias in the KRI and federal Iraq, respectively. When IS took Mosul in 2014, they did not discriminate against Gypsies specifically because of their identity or the stigma of immorality conferred upon them by majority society, but rather, treated them with the same disdain as the rest of the population. Some Gypsies remained in Mosul throughout the entire duration of the IS occupation of the city while others fled because of the threats, barbarism, and humiliation enacted against them, including arbitrary arrest and torture and IS requisition of homes. Other Gypsies were displaced from Mosul not because of the actions of IS but because the economy plummeted to such an extent that they were unable to generate any form of income, and so they moved elsewhere in search of livelihood opportunities.
For Bedouin, the brutality of IS, and the subsequent war, threatened not only their people but also their livestock. While Gypsies in Mosul live within urban residential areas, Bedouin are usually semi-nomadic, and due to their reliance on livestock, frequently live in or around villages. In Nineveh, villages increasingly became targets of both IS and military efforts to oust them, which caused many Bedouin to flee. The impact of climate change also drove the displacement of many Bedouin – particularly in the district of Al Ba’aj in Nineveh. Bedouin research participants spoke of how severe drought and water scarcity in their area had made it difficult to raise livestock, prompting them to leave in search of better pastures. Such climate-induced displacement intersected with ongoing conflict across Nineveh and posed significant risks for Bedouin IDPs, who were faced with crossing unfamiliar territory populated by villagers they did not know.
Displacement Journeys and Experiences
Whereas most ethno-religious groups, or extended family units, made the displacement journey from IS-occupied areas together, Gypsies frequently deviated from this norm and travelled as smaller family units. Furthermore, rather than travel to a shared location, different family units who fled Mosul sought refuge in areas as diverse as Kirkuk, Dohuk, Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Baghdad, and various villages in the KRI. Gypsies are commonly treated with contempt by non-Gypsy Iraqis, so it is probable that the practice of making the displacement journey in smaller groups was a conscious strategy to avoid standing out, thereby enabling Gypsy IDPs to present themselves as a different ethnicity as a means to avoiding discrimination.
Over the course of various research, it emerged that many Gypsies from Mosul and Nineveh who fled to the KRI sought refuge near the perimeter of formal IDP camps, though they did not seek shelter within them. Their position outside of the camps prohibited them from being able to access the support and services provided inside, but enabled them to avoid overt anti-Gypsy discrimination, while the proximity of the camps offered a reassuring sense of physical security. For those who did reside within formal IDP camps during their displacement, if their identity as Gypsy became known, they were often subjected to such a degree of discrimination by other camp residents such that they felt leaving was the only option. Several participants spoke of leaving their original displacement destination due to the discrimination and harassment they experienced. This was the case for those who sought safety within formal camps as well as those who informally resettled in peri-urban areas and villages. Experiences of discrimination, physical harassment and attacks, and forced social exclusion not only made Gypsy IDPs feel unwelcome and unsafe, it also severely limited their ability to access services and/or livelihood opportunities. While some Gypsy IDPs were secondarily displaced because of the negative treatment they received, others simply returned to their community of origin despite continued IS occupation. Gypsies who were displaced to informal settlements frequently reported that they received no humanitarian assistance nor other forms of support. While inside camps, camp management and NGOs did not sufficiently recognise the community-level dynamics at play and, therefore, failed to intervene.
Unlike Gypsies, Bedouin IDPs from Al Ba’aj moved in extended family groups, taking their livestock with them. This group-movement was perceived as providing a sense of safety but also enabled them to benefit from wider networks of extended families and friends which could be drawn upon to identify safe routes through sympathetic villages as well as suitable pastureland for their animals. Some groups travelled towards the Syrian border and remained in the mountainous area there while others moved on to access the KRI. For many, their months-long displacement journey was characterised by multiple movements due to having to continuously seek grazing and water for their animals whilst also avoiding environments which would expose them to disease.
During their displacement, many Bedouin IDPs reported that they received no direct support from the government or organisations but, instead, relied heavily on the kindness and area knowledge of villages they passed through. Building relationships with villagers in communities they passed through represented a key survival mechanism. Among those who had received humanitarian assistance, support was primarily in the form of food parcels, non-food items such as blankets and fuel, and in some cases, help in caring for their livestock. Despite their best efforts, many reported that their livestock herds diminished during displacement, increasing the need to find other sources of income generation, or wage labour, beyond that which some family members already engaged in.
A minority of Bedouin research participants also spoke of being discriminated against during their displacement. Such discrimination against Bedouin appears to be rooted in a belief held by some Iraqis that Bedouin transported goods for IS. Whether there is a grain of truth to this remains unknown, but such a narrative increased the precarity of Bedouin IDPs, for whom their livestock prevented them from being able to adopt a faux identity in order to circumvent negative attention.
Complexities of Return
According to the Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Framework on Durable Solutions for Internally Displaced Persons, “mere physical movement, namely returning to one’s home or place of habitual residence, moving to another part of the country or choosing to integrate locally often does not amount to a durable solution.” Rather, in the case of return, “sustainable reintegration” is required. Furthermore, IDPs should be provided the opportunity to make a voluntary decision on the durable solution they would choose. The GoI has failed to meet international standards by emphasising return as the only solution to internal displacement, whilst camp closures have resulted in a feeling of coerced return among many IDPs.
For sustainable reintegration of returnees to Mosul and Nineveh to be achieved, there are myriad development and peacebuilding issues that must be considered. This should necessarily include an analysis of the social positionality and associated needs which certain groups of returnees present within location-specific community dynamics.
Many Gypsies in Mosul now face double discrimination purely because of their ethnic identity. For decades, Gypsies in federal Iraq have been associated with sex work, selling alcohol, and begging, and, therefore, stigmatised and ostracised. However, since the occupation of Nineveh by IS, an additional layer of stigma has emerged, underpinned by a social narrative which posits that Gypsies from Mosul were not only supporters of IS but that they planted explosive devices for the terrorist group. The specificity of this stigma within an environment of such fragile peace renders Gypsies particularly vulnerable to reprisal violence. Aside from this, it also obstructs social cohesion and the ability of Gypsies to both access critical services and resources and generate an income, given that they are reliant on non-Gypsies to employ or buy goods from them.
Research participants from Mosul’s returnee Gypsy communities spoke of the ways in which anti-Gypsy discrimination permeates every aspect of their everyday lives. Some have experienced violence perpetrated against them precisely because they are Gypsy. Gypsy children are often bullied so badly in schools that they drop-out, resulting in their receiving no formal education. Illustrating the negative impact absence of education has for their futures, most Gypsies are non-literate due to their socially enforced de facto exclusion from education while employment discrimination renders many households reliant on income generated through begging. The consequences of this entrenched cyclical and structural violence reinforce negative stereotypes which portray Gypsies as backwards, uninterested in education, or uncivilised. Relatedly, government officials in Mosul reportedly often make it difficult for Gypsies to obtain identity documentation for their children, while the degree of discrimination, bullying, and harassment they experience effectively prohibits them from accessing the services and resources to which they are entitled.
It is within this landscape of discrimination and exclusion that Mosul’s Gypsies comprise the city’s dispossessed. The state has effectively abandoned them while nexus actors frequently exclude them from programming. Among Gypsy research participants, many had received no assistance from the government, international agencies, or (I)NGOs since their return to the city. Those who had received such support reported that they had been able to access some food and shelter support as well as very limited psychosocial support upon their initial return, but this support has now dwindled significantly. There has been no effort to provide education to Gypsy children, whether formal or non-formal, nor address the anti-Gypsyism which acts as a barrier to their accessing mainstream education. This absence of educational support condemns Gypsies to a cycle of poverty from which they cannot escape. It also places Gypsy children at a heightened risk of physical harm, sexual abuse, trafficking, and/or other forms of exploitation. Due to the severity of household poverty many Gypsy families in Mosul experience, children regularly engage in informal labour, often in dangerous, or high-risk, environments.
Gypsies frequently reported that they had not been invited to participate in any assessments or consultations regarding their needs, but rather, were either entirely excluded from support provided by nexus-actors or were treated as passive recipients of assistance which was not directly relevant to their priority needs. Contrary to popular discriminatory narratives that Gypsies are uninterested in schooling, Gypsy research participants frequently prioritised access to safe, inclusive education for their children, sustainable income for adults, vocational training for young adults, and crucially, mental health and psychosocial support.
Bedouin in Al Ba’aj frequently expressed mixed feelings about their return. On the one hand, they felt a deep connection to the land and therefore felt like they were returning home, but on the other hand, they recognised that they were returning to many of the challenges they had left behind during displacement. These challenges are both climate-related and socially constructed. Climate change is affecting Bedouin across Iraq as the country is heating twice as fast as the global average, resulting in approximately 89% of its arable land already having been desertified due to severe water scarcity. Furthermore, it has been reported that climate change is fuelling the militarisation of society in agricultural areas which are particularly impacted. Reflecting this, Bedouin participants referred to ongoing instability in their communities of return, combined with insufficient protection, which makes them feel unsafe. These feelings of danger are exacerbated by the discrimination they experience as a community.
Though Bedouin research participants expressed a preference for a traditional way of life reliant on livestock, the impact of climate change – particularly desertification and water scarcity – is making it increasingly difficult for them to generate sufficient income from livestock alone. Yet little action is being taken at the state level to ensure that Bedouin children and youth are equipped with the transferrable skills which would enable them to gain formal employment. There is often no form of education provision available to Bedouin children, while in cases where Bedouin can attend schools, they experience discrimination. The automatic assumption of nomadism also seems to have resulted in state disinvestment from Bedouin communities. Aside from an inability to access education (including non-formal education), Bedouin research participants reported poor access to healthcare, poor community infrastructure, and a complete absence of mental health and psychosocial support. Furthermore, many reported that the small amounts of direct assistance they received from humanitarian organisations during displacement (such as food packages, shelter, fuel, blankets, assistance caring for their livestock, and support in accessing identity documentation) have come to an end, making them feel less supported since they returned to their communities of origin.
Bedouin research participants pose similar social cohesion support needs to Gypsies, with both groups being uniquely discriminated against for reasons linked to IS and the harm IS wreaked upon Iraqi society. For this reason, Bedouin also expressed a preference for mental health and psychosocial support. Like Gypsies, Bedouin also prioritised access to education for their children, delivered in schools which are sufficiently equipped, through teachers who are adequately trained and sufficiently qualified. Bedouin also expressed a priority need for healthcare and the means through which to generate a sustainable income, thereby enabling them to ensure that household food and clothing needs are met.
Conclusion
Iraqi Gypsies and Bedouin have historically been perceived as external to the state: whether romanticised as wanderers and endowed with an imagined resilience due to nomadism, or perceived as untrustworthy, deliberately underdeveloped communities with little interest in education and formal economic structures. State politics and narratives have undoubtedly shaped humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding provision (or absence thereof) for these populations.
To assume that Gypsies and/or Bedouin will be able to access services and support if they are present in the location in which such services and support are provided is to misunderstand, or completely overlook, the social dynamics they inhabit. Furthermore, the failure of nexus actors to conduct consultative, open-ended needs assessments (as opposed to pre-formulated surveys) among Iraqi Gypsies and Bedouin has resulted in Gypsy and Bedouin returnees being unsupported, despite their unique protection and development needs. Moreover, an absence of consultation has effectively silenced their desire for education – which contradicts popular tropes – whilst also erasing their experiences of displacement and return from the nexus-oriented landscape. As a result, there have been few, if any, efforts in Mosul and wider Nineveh to counter discriminatory narratives or promote social cohesion between majority society members and Gypsies and/or Bedouin.
Return for Gypsies and Bedouin in Nineveh poses myriad unmet protection, community development, and peacebuilding needs, of which these groups are keenly aware. They are also aware of the most effective means through which to implement the type of programming required to address these needs – when, and if, anybody should care to ask.
The author would like to thank Terre des hommes Iraq for granting permission to draw upon their internal Migration Analysis for Iraq, as well as all those who participated in the various phases of research referenced throughout this article.
Sarah Edgcumbe is a PhD Candidate in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. Her doctoral research focuses on Gypsy and Roma experiences of conflict and liberal peace in Iraq and Kosovo, but her wider research interests include the intersection of identity, conflict, displacement, peacebuilding, and resistance.
KEYWORDS: Iraq, Gypsy, Bedouin, Displacement, IDPs
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[1] This includes various independent academic research conducted since 2021, as well as research performed by the author in collaboration with STOOS Consulting during 2024, which culminated in the production of migration analysis report for internal use by Terre des hommes Iraq.
[2] Middle Eastern Roma