Iraqi families return home as violence ebbs
A senior Iraqi military official said yesterday that more than 46,000 people had returned to their homes in Baghdad from outside Iraq in October as security improved in the capital.
Baghdad: A senior Iraqi military official said yesterday that more than 46,000 people had returned to their homes in Baghdad from outside Iraq in October as security improved in the capital.
The figure was a large jump from earlier government estimates that 3,200 families had returned to their homes in Baghdad since January.
"As a result of the improvement of the security situation in the capital Baghdad the total number of Iraqis returning from outside through Iraqi border exit points during October reached 46,030," Baghdad security spokesman Brigadier-General Qasim Moussawi told a news conference.
Mousawi said the figures were a sign that a new security strategy in Iraq, including a "surge" of 30,000 extra US troops in and around Baghdad, more active Iraqi security forces and neighbourhood policing, was paying off.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which tracks the movement of displaced Iraqis, said Iraq's Ministry of Displacement and Migration had registered the return of some 3,350 families, or 20,000 people, to Baghdad since January.
Dana Graber, an Iraqi displacement expert at IOM in Jordan, said she had not seen the figures referred to by Moussawi and could not comment on the apparent discrepancies.
"The rate of return has begun to pick up. It tends to be more of a trickle going to homogenous areas. Iraqis are waiting to make sure the current status of security is a long-term phenomenon," she said.
