BAGHDAD, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi government on Tuesday launched a plan to encourage displaced persons to return to their homes from displacement camps in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.
Karim al-Nouri, deputy minister of the Ministry of Migration and Displaced (MoMD), told the INA that the plan will be implemented in cooperation with the ministries of transport and education, as it includes job opportunities and a significant increase in the amount of money granted to each displaced family.
Al-Nouri said that the Ministry of Transport has adopted a program to provide taxi jobs for the displaced individuals who can drive, while the Ministry of Education offered a certain percentage of appointments for the displaced persons.
He added that the Council of Ministers voted in favor of increasing the amount of money granted to displaced families returning to their original homes to 4 million Iraqi dinars (about 3,056 U.S. dollars) from the previous 1.5 million dinars.
The MoMD has set June 30 as the date to permanently close the camps for the displaced people in the Kurdistan region.
According to the figures released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are more than 1 million internally displaced people in Iraq. They have been hampered from returning to their homes due to insecurity, lack of livelihoods, and the destruction or damage of their homes. ■
