Refugees anticipate returning home after Mosul operation

World Today

The United Nations puts the number of Iraq’s internally displaced persons at 3.3 million. Many have fled ISIL-rule and ensuing battles to push ISIL out. As the current campaign to oust ISIL from Mosul advances, former residents anticipate going home but don’t have high expectations for a positive future.

CCTV’s Stephanie Freid reports.

Almost all of the 4,000 internally displaced Iraqis at Nebe Yunis Camp, which lies outside Baghdad, are from Mosul

They fled when ISIL came in, but most anticipate returning home when the extremists are pushed out.

Some, however, are afraid that ISIL will remain in the area. And It’s not only ISIL they’re frightened of. Al Qaeda was in Mosul before ISIL took over and sectarian infighting was prevalent.

The people want to go back to Mosul but they don’t expect for things to be okay. They said if it’s not ISIL it will be another group that comes in that the factional fighting will continue for generations to come.