An Overview of Displacement in Iraq: DTM Integrated Location Assessment V, 2020

Displaced communities began to return in waves from March 2015, following the military campaigns to retake areas under ISIL control and driven by expectations of restored stability, which peaked between June 2017 and June 2018, when nearly 4 million individuals returned to their location of origin. Since then, the pace of returns (the percentage change in the number of returns) has slowed, settling at around 10 per cent per year, which means that around 1.3 million people are still displaced. The prolonged absence from home, coupled with unresolved inter-group dynamics and new concerns over the resurgence of ISIL, affects the internally displaced persons’ (IDPs) ability to return, and in some cases, triggers new displacement.