IDP’s are Internally Displaced Persons in the vernacular of the refugee resettlement industry folks. The mainstream media tells us that a couple of million are displaced within Iraq and we must begin resettling these so-called refugees to the US. The normal definition of “refugee” specifies that the person must have left his or her own country due to persecution or the fear of persecution; economic migrants don’t count. We, at RRW, are trying to get to the bottom of this issue.
Here is an article from Relief Web that gives us a bit more information:
BAGHDAD, 27 July 2008 (IRIN) – A provincial investigative committee in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf is to go check the files of more than 200 displaced families living in a camp outside the city to determine who are genuinely displaced and who are not, an official said on 26 July.
Mashkour al-Mousawi, director of the Ministry of Displacement and Migration’s Najaf province branch, added that the committee will expel from the camp those families claiming to be displaced and will encourage the return of some genuine internally displaced persons (IDPs) to areas now deemed safer for them to return to.
“We have reports that there are some families from remote areas pretending to be displaced who have joined other displaced families in al-Manathira camp to benefit from financial, food and non-food assistance,” said al-Mousawi.
We are glad to learn that the Iraqi government is working to sort this out and look forward to reports from reporters in the US media telling the American public the whole story and not simply regurgitating press releases from NGO’s.