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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2020
The displacement of civilians during a protracted war is a difficult issue that deserves our attention, and Iraq is unfortunately an emblematic example of this phenomenon. Based on the literature produced by humanitarian organizations and academia, this article aims at analyzing what triggers displacement in protracted conflict, highlighting the role of international humanitarian law (IHL) violations. It discusses how Iraq has been struggling with acts of violence, hostilities and IHL violations that have generated displacement and human suffering.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the ICRC's point of view. The author would like to thank the Review team and the article's peer reviewers for their invaluable input.
1 ICRC, Protracted Conflict and Humanitarian Action: Some Recent ICRC Experiences, 20 June 2016, available at: www.icrc.org/en/document/protracted-conflict-and-humanitarian-action (all internet references were accessed in June 2020).
2 Palmieri, Daniel, “Crossing the Desert – the ICRC in Iraq: Analysis of a Humanitarian Operation”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 90, No. 869, 2008CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Al-Samaraie, Nasir Ahmed, “Humanitarian Implications of the Wars in Iraq”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 89, No. 868, 2007Google Scholar.
4 Knut Dörmann and Laurent Colassis, “International Humanitarian Law in the Iraq Conflict”, German Yearbook of International Law, Vol. 47, 2004, available at: https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/other/ihl_in_iraq_conflict.pdf.
5 On this subject, several articles from 2007 were already making clear how devastating the various consequences of the war were for Iraq. See Ihsanoglu, Ekmeleddin, “Assessing the Human Tragedy in Iraq”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 89, No. 868, 2007CrossRefGoogle Scholar; N. A. Al-Samaraie, above note 3; Daponte, Beth Osborne, “Wartime Estimates of Iraqi Civilian Casualties”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 89, No. 868, 2007CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Regarding the acceptance of humanitarian aid in Iraq, see Hansen, Greg, “The Ethos-Practice Gap: Perceptions of Humanitarianism in Iraq”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 90, No. 869, 2008CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mattli, Karl and Gasser, Jörg, “A Neutral, Impartial and Independent Approach: Key to ICRC's Acceptance in Iraq”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 90, No. 869, 2008CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 For an overview of the possible consequences of displacement, see ICRC, Displacement in Times of Armed Conflict, Geneva, 2019, pp. 17–23.
8 Ibid., pp. 43–49.
9 See ICRC, Displaced in Cities: Experiencing and Responding to Urban Internal Displacement Outside Camps, Geneva, December 2018; Cotroneo, Angela, “Specificities and Challenges of Responding to Internal Displacement in Urban Settings”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 99, No. 904, 2017CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Catherine-Lune Grayson, “Internal Displacement: Some Reflections on Cracking the Urban Challenge”, Humanitarian Law and Policy Blog, 23 September 2018, available at: https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2018/09/23/internal-displacement-reflections-cracking-urban-challenge-2/. Regarding the specific costs and challenges of hosting Iraqi refugees, see Harper, Andrew, “Iraq's Refugees: Ignored and Unwanted”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 90, No. 869, 2008, pp. 177 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 ICRC, Urban Services during Protracted Armed Conflict: A Call for a Better Approach to Assisting Affected People, Geneva, September 2015, available at: https://www.icrc.org/en/document/urban-services-protracted-conflict-report.
11 International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, “World Humanitarian Day – 10am: Low Battery Anxiety?”, 18 August 2016, available at: http://media.ifrc.org/ifrc-pages/2016/08/18/world-humanitarian-day-10am-low-battery-anxiety/.
12 ICRC, above note 9, pp. 44–45.
13 E. Ihsanoglu, above note 5, p. 922.
14 ICRC, “Access to Education”, available at: www.icrc.org/en/access-education; Elizabeth Ferris and Rebecca Winthrop, “Education and Displacement: Assessing Conditions for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons Affected by Conflict”, Background Paper commissioned for the Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2011, 2010; Dryden-Peterson, Sarah, “Conflict, Education and Displacement”, Conflict & Education, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2011Google Scholar, available at: https://wcfia.harvard.edu/files/wcfia/files/sdryden-peterson_conflict_education_and_displacement.pdf.
15 ICRC, Iraq Activity Report 2016, 2017, p. 7, available at: www.icrc.org/en/document/iraq-activity-report-2016.
16 ICRC, above note 9, p. 46.
17 Sassoon, Joseph, The Iraqi Refugees. The New Crisis in the Middle East, I. B. Tauris, New York, 2011, p. 99Google Scholar.
18 Ibid., pp. 97–98.
19 Rogg, Ina and Rimscha, Hans, “The Kurds as Parties to and Victims of Conflicts in Iraq”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 89, No. 868, 2007, pp. 827–828CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
20 Mlodoch, Karin, “The Indelible Smell of Apples: Poison Gas Survivors in Halabja, Kurdistan-Iraq, and Their Struggle for Recognition”, in Friedrich, Bretislav et al. (eds), One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment, Consequences, Springer, Cham, 2017Google Scholar.
21 I. Rogg and H. Rimscha, above note 19. See also Henckaerts, Jean-Marie and Doswald-Beck, Louise (eds), Customary International Humanitarian Law, Vol. 2: Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Practice relating to Rule 74, available at: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v2_rul_rule74.
22 K. Mlodoch, above note 20.
23 Razoux, Pierre, La guerre Iran–Irak 1980–1988, Tempus, Paris, 2017, p. 729Google Scholar.
24 I. Rogg and H. Rimscha, above note 19, p. 829.
25 J. Sassoon, above note 17, p. 96.
26 ICRC, Annual Report 1997, Geneva, 1998, pp. 260–266.
27 Walter Kälin, “A Tragedy of Increasing Proportions: Internal Displacement in Iraq”, Forced Migration Review, Special Issue, “Iraq's Displacement Crisis: The Search for Solutions”, 2007.
28 Roberta Cohen and John Fawcett, The Internally Displaced People of Iraq, Memo No. 6, Saban Center, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, November 2002; John Fawcett and Victor Tanner, The Internally Displaced People of Iraq, Brookings-SAIS Project on Internal Displacement, October 2002, cited in Cohen, Roberta, “Iraq's Displaced: Where to Turn?”, American University International Law Review, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2008Google Scholar, available at: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/iraqs-displaced-where-to-turn/.
29 Norwegian Refugee Council, Profile of Internal Displacement: Iraq, June 2002, p. 24.
30 See, for example, ICRC, Overview of Operations 2003, Geneva, 2002, pp. 3, 22, available at: www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/other/over2003_bkmk.pdf.
31 J. Sassoon, above note 17, p. 10.
32 Ibid., p. 11.
33 Al-Tikriti, Nabil, “There Go the Neighbourhoods: Policy Effects vis-à-vis Iraqi Forced Migration”, in Chatty, Dawn and Finlayson, Bill (eds), Dispossession and Displacement: Forced Migration in the Middle East and North Africa, Oxford University Press, New York, 2010, pp. 267–268Google Scholar.
34 Regarding Iraq's ethnic and religious make-up, see Luizard, Pierre-Jean, “Islam as a Point of Reference for Political and Social Groups in Iraq”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 89, No. 868, 2007CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
35 J. Sassoon, above note 17, p. 11; Kaldor, Mary, “From Just War to Just Peace”, in Reed, Charles and Ryall, David (eds), The Price of Peace: Just War in the Twenty First Century, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009, p. 265Google Scholar.
36 Dina Abou Samra, “Military-Induced Displacement”, Forced Migration Review, Special Issue, “Iraq's Displacement Crisis: The Search for Solutions”, 2007, p. 37.
37 J. Sassoon, above note 17, p. 10; N. A. Al-Samaraie, above note 3, pp. 938 ff.
38 Marfleet, Philip, “Displacement and the State – the Case of Iraq”, in Koser, Khalid and Martin, Susan (eds), The Migration-Displacement Nexus: Patterns, Processes, and Policies, Berghahn Books, New York, 2011Google Scholar.
39 ICRC, Civilians without Protection: The Ever-Worsening Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq, Geneva, 2007Google Scholar.
40 IOM, Iraq Displacement 2007 Mid-Year Review, 2007, p. 2, available at: https://tinyurl.com/ydfbu2af.
41 Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Internal Displacement: Global Overview of Trends and Developments in 2007, 2008, available at: www.internal-displacement.org/sites/default/files/publications/documents/2008-global-overview2007-global-en.pdf.
42 Roberta Cohen, “Iraq's Displaced: Where to Turn?”, American University International Law Review, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2008, available at: www.brookings.edu/articles/iraqs-displaced-where-to-turn/.
43 P. Marfleet, above note 38; A. Harper, above note 9.
44 See Lahib Higel, Iraq's Displacement Crisis: Security and Protection, Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights and Minority Rights Group International, March 2016, p. 8; Chris Champman and Preti Taneja, Uncertain Refuge, Dangerous Return: Iraq's Uprooted Minorities, Minority Rights Group International, 2009, pp. 11–13. These sources estimate the number of Iraqi refugees in other countries at 2.2–2.4 million, but no precise figures are available.
45 Brookings Institution, “Iraq Index Tracking Variables of Reconstruction and Security Post-Saddam Iraq”, Washington, DC, 29 October 2007, p. 29, cited in E. Ihsanoglu, above note 5, p. 920.
46 A. Harper, above note 9, p. 170; J. Sassoon, above note 17, p. 4.
47 Géraldine Chatelard, “What Visibility Conceals: Re-embedding Refugee Migration from Iraq”, in D. Chatty and B. Finlayson (eds), above note 33.
48 L. Higel, above note 44, p. 11.
49 ACAPS, Iraq Displacement Profile, 4 July 2014, available at: https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/iraq_displacement_profile_4_july_2014.pdf.
50 L. Higel, above note 44, p. 15.
51 Antonio Massella, We Have Forgotten What Happiness Is: Youth Perspectives of Displacement and Return in Qayyarah Subdistrict, Mosul, Oxfam, 2017, p. 10.
52 IOM, “UN Migration Agency Assists Thousands of Iraqis Newly Displaced from West Anbar”, 10 March 2017, available at: www.iom.int/news/un-migration-agency-assists-thousands-iraqis-newly-displaced-west-anbar.
53 This overview has focused on the violence in Iraq itself, and not on the Syrian refugees who fled the conflict in their own country, taking refuge in Iraq.
54 ICRC, above note 7, pp. 21–23.
55 L. Higel, above note 44, p. 11.
56 Ashraf Al-Khalidi, Sophia Hoffman and Victor Tanner, Iraqi Refugees in The Syrian Arab Republic: A Field-Based Snapshot, Brookings Institution–University of Bern Project on Internal Displacement, 2007, p. 46, available at: www.brookings.edu/research/iraqi-refugees-in-the-syrian-arab-republic-a-field-based-snapshot/; J. Sassoon, above note 17, p. 62.
57 ACAPS, above note 49.
58 United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, “Trauma Survey in Syria Highlights Suffering of Iraqi Refugees”, press release, 2008; A. Harper, above note 9, p. 173; J. Sassoon, above note 17, p. 72.
59 ICRC, above note 39.
60 ICRC, “Iraq: An Ever-Worsening Crisis”, Press Release No. 07/49, 11 April 2007.
61 See, in particular, articles in the “War in Cities” issue of the International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 98, No. 901, 2016; ICRC, “Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas”, available at: www.icrc.org/explosive-weapons-populated-areas-1; Ellen Nohle and Isabel Robinson, “War in Cities: The ‘Reverberating Effects’ of Explosive Weapons”, Humanitarian Law and Policy Blog, 3 March 2017, available at: https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2017/03/02/war-in-cities-the-reverberating-effects-of-explosive-weapons; L. Higel, above note 44, p. 11; J. Sassoon, above note 17, p. 72; Simon Bagshaw, “Driving Displacement: Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas”, Forced Migration Review, No. 41, 2012, p. 12.
62 A. Massella, above note 51, p. 17.
63 ICRC, “Iraq: Ongoing Conflict Claims Hundreds of Civilian Lives Every Month”, press release, 12 August 2009, available at: https://reliefweb.int/report/iraq/iraq-ongoing-conflict-claims-hundreds-civilian-lives-every-month.
64 A. Massella, above note 51, p. 10.
65 ICRC, above note 9, p. 19.
66 ICRC, “ICRC Concerned about the Plight of Civilians in Iraq”, News Release No. 05/26, 16 May 2005.
67 ACAPS, above note 49.
68 L. Higel, above note 44, p. 16.
69 Ibid.
70 ICRC, “Iraq: Millions Struggle to Cope with the Impact of Five Years of War”, News Release No. 08/46, 17 March 2008.
71 Precise statistics are not available. Joseph Sassoon has collected various data, with estimates that between 12,000 and 18,000 doctors – out of a total of 34,000 living in Iraq in 2003 – left the country. The Iraqi Red Crescent estimated that 50% of doctors and 70% of specialists left Iraq. J. Sassoon, above note 17, p. 143. The figures are quoted in E. Ihsanoglu, above note 5, p. 921.
72 J. Sassoon, above note 17, p. 62.
73 C. Champman and P. Taneja, above note 44, p. 13.
74 IOM, Iraq Displacement 2007 Year in Review, 2008, available at: https://reliefweb.int/report/iraq/iraq-displacement-2007-year-review.
75 C. Champman and P. Taneja, above note 44, p. 9.
76 Ibid., p. 13.
77 Ibid., p. 13.
78 Ibid.; José Riera and Andrew Harper, “Iraq: The Search for Solutions”, Forced Migration Review, Special Issue, “Iraq's Displacement Crisis: The Search for Solutions”, 2007.
79 C. Champman and P. Taneja, above note 44.
80 L. Higel, above note 44, p. 14.
81 C. Champman and P. Taneja, above note 44, pp. 28–29.
82 L. Higel, above note 44, p. 21.
83 IOM, Obstacles to Return in Retaken Areas of Iraq, 2017, p. 14.
84 ICRC, above note 9, pp. 29–31; ICRC, above note 7, pp. 20–21.
85 ICRC, above note 7, pp. 38–40.
86 Knut Dörmann and Jose Serralvo, “Common Article 1 to the Geneva Conventions and the Obligation to Prevent International Humanitarian Law Violations”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 96, No. 895–896, 2014. See also ICRC, above note 7, pp. 62–65.
87 Robert Zimmerman, “Responding to Iraq's Ever-Deepening Violence”, Forced Migration Review, Special Issue, “Iraq's Displacement Crisis: The Search for Solutions”, 2007, pp. 29–30; ICRC, “The Ever-Worsening Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq”, Press Release No. 07/49, 11 April 2007.
88 Emilie Combaz, Effects of Respect for International Humanitarian Law on Displacement, GSDRC Helpdesk Research Report No. 1393, Birmingham, 2016, p. 14; A. Massella, above note 51, p. 7.
89 A. Massella, above note 51, p. 7.
90 ICRC, above note 7, pp. 51–57.
91 A. Massella, above note 51, pp. 7–8, 19.
92 IOM, above note 83, p. 12.
93 Ibid., p. v.
94 A. Massella, above note 51, p. 19.
95 J. Sassoon, above note 17, p. 158.
96 ICRC, above note 7, pp. 60–61.
97 Ibid., pp. 60–61.
98 Pfanner, Toni, “Editorial”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 89, No. 868, 2007, p. 783CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
