Looking at Kurdish Refugee Camps in Northern Iraq

According to the UNHCR, there are over 2.4 million displaced people currently living in Iraq - the largest urban refugee situation that the organization has ever encountered. I would like to tell their story.

I have been photographing the Kurdish people of Southeast Turkey for four consecutive summers now and in 2008 crossed the border into Northern Iraq for the first time. Almost immediately after crossing I met a young Kurdish man from Syria working at a local rest stop. He told us about the refugee camp that he and his family had been living in for over four years now; about the mass riots that broke out in Syria in 2004 which resulted in the deaths of dozen of Kurds; about how these riots caused his family to flee their home. My fixer and I immediately decided to take a detour to visit these people in the Moqoble refugee camp outside of Dohuk. What we found were a forgotten people living heavily encamped in tents provided by the UNHCR that were meant to be only temporary and women waiting anxiously for a truck to deliver fresh food. And yet the Kurdish colors still hung high and the people, as always, were so quick to invite us into their humble homes to offer us water - which we were afraid to drink. I did not have the proper paperwork yet to photograph within the perimeters of the Kurdish Regional Government so I was not able to stay long. The security guard on-duty however, turned his back for five minutes solely because he himself felt the story of these people needed to be told.

According to a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) report published in 2008, over 2.4 million displaced people are currently living in Iraq - the largest urban refugee situation that the organization has ever encountered. 42,354 individuals were specifically identified as refugees supported by the UNHCR. Of this, almost 16,000 are Turkish Kurds, 11,000 are Iranians of mixed Kurdish and Arab decent, and about 600 are Syrian Kurds. Kurdish refugees make up almost 65% of all refugees currently living in the country of Iraq.

I wasn't able to get back to the camp last summer because I was already on my way to Sulaimaniyah, Iraq to run a multimedia training pilot program for a non-profit called the Tiziano Project. However, the people I saw in the Moqoble Refugee Camp and the living conditions that I witnessed have remained etched into my mind. Having spent so much time working in the Kurdish region of Turkey and Iraq, I have found myself deeply connected with the people. I would like to go back to the region this summer and revisit the Moqoble camp, as well as other Kurdish refugee camps currently in operation in Northern Iraq, to try to make a difference for the residents by telling the story of these forgotten people.

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