538 displaced families return home in Diyala province
Displaced people, who fled the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, gather at Hassan Sham camp, east of Mosul, Iraq, January 2, 2017. Picture taken 2, 2017. REUTERS/Ari Jalal
Diyala (IraqiNews.com) 538 displaced families have returned back to their houses in Jalawla town, in Diyala province, the local administration declared on Tuesday.
Speaking to Al-Ghad Press, Yaaqoub Youssef, head of the town, said “538 displaced families began to return back to their houses in the liberated town of Jalawla, located in Khanaqin city, northeastern Diyala.”
“These families are some of the total number families that have not come back yet,” Youssef said.
The administration of Jalawla obtained approval on return of the 538 families earlier this week.
More than 400,000 refugees were displaced by battles between Iraqi security forces and Islamic State militants in Mosul since security operations launched in October, according to Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights.
The number of people displaced inside the country is estimated by Iraqi government at more than four million persons since the emergence of IS in 2014.
According to United Nations, the total of civilians displaced since October stood at more than 320,000. It had predicted a total of 1.5 million people to be displaced upon the launch of the operations.