Sinjar

Displaced Iraqis queue for passports in Irbil

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• published: 17 Nov 2016
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(14 Feb 2016) RESTRICTION SUMMARY: AP CLIENTS ONLY AP TELEVISION - AP CLIENTS ONLY Irbil, Iraq - 14 February 2016 1. Various of Iraqi internally displaced people (IDPs) waiting at Irbil passport office 2. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mohammed Aref Fattah, 28, IDP from Fallujah: "I applied for a passport because I don't have one. I am an IDP here and I might travel at any time." 3. Cutaway of documents 4. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mohammed Aref Fattah, 28, IDP from Fallujah: "Because the military operations are taking a very long time and life outside is much better than in Iraq, especially for IDPs." 5. Cutaway of documents 6. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mohammed Aref Fattah, 28, IDP from Fallujah: "Although we, as IDPs, are safe and secure here in this region, many of us live in Baghdad and other areas where there is lawlessness and lots of weapons, these things make people consider emigration." 7. Various of IDPs waiting at passport office 8. SOUNDBITE (Kurdish) Kara Khalil Abdullah, Police Captain : "The majority of people are leaving because there is fighting in their areas. Like the IDPs from Mosul and especially the Christians and the Yazidis who are here in the office today. They all want to emigrate to Europe." 9. Man waiting at passport office 10. SOUNDBITE (Kurdish) Kara Khalil Abdullah, Police Captain : "The same thing goes for the Arabs from Mosul, Tikrit, Samarrah, and Anbar. But some of these areas are being liberated and so some of these people are now going home. Still, many of them are emigrating, too." 11. Various of people waiting inside passport office 12. Various of woman having her fingerprint taken 13. Various of people queuing outside 14. SOUNDBITE (Kurdish) Asad Omar, 19, Yazidi IDP from Sinjar: "The situation in Sinjar is bad. It's not been fully liberated, only the town, while the rest of the area is in the hands of Daesh (Islamic State group). And there are no salaries at all so we have to leave." 15. Cutaway of document folder 16. SOUNDBITE (Kurdish) Asad Omar, 19, Yazidi IDP from Sinjar: "It is very difficult because it's very crowded here. And they're delaying us on purpose. They say the internet doesn't work and they send us home. That might be okay for people who live in Irbil but not for us. I can't do that, it's very difficult." 17. People inside office 18. Various of people receiving passports STORYLINE: There is a rush for passports at the government documentations office in Irbil as many displaced Iraqis consider emigration, typically to Europe. The Kurdish region of Iraq is home to over a million displaced persons from all across the country. Many despair of the ongoing violence between government forces and the Islamic State group, and the economic crisis, largely caused by the steep fall in oil prices. The Irbil passport office has issued over 10,000 passports since the beginning of 2015 to IDPs alone. The number of applications, at one point reaching 500 a day, is now slightly down from last year's peak. The application is not a simple process, often taking several days. Bureaucratic complexities are compounded by the fact that the office is connected to the Baghdad central office by internet and whenever the connection is bad, the fingerprinting doesn't work. This is a problem especially for those who live in other parts of the region, often many hours away. One four-member family said it had cost them 600 (US) dollars to get their passports (about 150 dollars each), much of it in travel costs. There is another office in Duhok but waiting times there may be as long as a year, leading many IDPs from the west of the region to travel to Irbil for their applications. =========================================================== Clients are reminded: You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/abbe73d4216cb3a12e0d654532c57f78 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork