500 refugee families fear return to Diyala over blood feud

Diyala (IraqiNews.com) Five-hundred refugee families in Diyala are wary of returning home due to past blood feuds as old as ten years, according to a local source.

“A tribal blood feud dating back to 2006 is preventing 500 refugee families from returning home in Khailaniya (47 km northeast of Baqubah),” Alsumaria News quoted the source as saying, on condition of anonymity.

“Government, political, tribal and security leaderships have made tremendous efforts for months to resolve the tribal feud and return the displaced families home after they had spent more than two years at refugee camps in Khanqin (105 km northeast of Baqubah), where they live in miserable conditions.”

Violence between 2006 and 2008, as well as that which erupted with the rise of the Islamic State in 2014, ignited bitter tribal feuds at some regions, especially in Diyala’s town of Maqdadiah.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees have been displaced since ISIS took over several provinces in Iraq in 2014. The United Nations has recorded at least 73000 refugees from the city of Mosul alone as Iraqi troops continue six-week-old operations to liberate the city from the extremist group.