turkmen in iraq and their flight - orsam

TURKMEN IN IRAQ AND THEIR FLIGHT: A DEMOCRAPHIC QUESTION
and protected. The level of displacement we
have seen since the invasion is scary and surely
would scare some ethnic minorities as we may
yet see new ethnic cleansing attempts. 62 Lack of
material security as a result of insurgencies and
other issues mentioned above is likely to foster
a strong perception of human insecurity which
tend to stay even if the causes behind are removed.
Thus this perception which is a part of
the non-material insecurity is more important
when analysing international migration potentials.
A poll conducted in 2007, for example,
shows that 60 percent of Iraqis rate their economic
conditions poor while 75 percent rate
their security conditions poor. 63 Nevertheless,
I would expect differences in perceptions and
reactions to the perception among different
ethnic and religious groups because of the different
levels of deprivation experienced by different
groups. Then, different levels of migration
by different segments of Iraqi population
can be expected.
Iraqi International Migration
So far I have discussed the link between conflicts,
deprivation, and resulting environment of
human insecurity and migration. In this chapter,
Iraqi international migration patterns over
the last three decades will be presented based
on data sourced from UNHCR, UN, and MPI
(Migration Policy Institute). This would give
the reader an understanding of the context
within which Turkmen emigration takes places
and interacts with. Conflicts, ethnic conflicts in
particular, are essential part of the Iraqi international
migration dynamics. Wars and postwar
crises have all contributed to outflows from
Iraq during the 1990s and 2000s. The tensions
among different ethnic components of the Iraqi
society, such as Kurds; Turkmen, Shiites, and
Sunnis have contested issues between and these
are also likely to aggravate further migration.
Driven by economic, political, cultural or any
other reasons, Iraqi migration is likely to follow
the existing Iraqi immigrant networks like
in any other national case. Thus neighbouring
Turkey and Europe will continue to be the destination
for most of them.
Sudden population movements are not new in
the Middle East. Since the 1948 Arab-Israeli
War, which resulted in 700,000 displaced Palestinians,
the region saw various other episodes. 64
Flight of Iraqis following the 2003 invasion and
the flight of Lebanese following the summer
2006 War 65 have been the last links in the chain.
In the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, there has
been an increased interest in the Iraqi migration
subject, possibly due to large scale displacements.
Most sources today cite a total figure of
about 4.5 million for the number of Iraqis displaced
after the 2003 invasion, including Andrew
Harper, the head of UNHCR’s Iraq Support
Unit, says UNHCR believes the figure should
be about 4.5 million (2008, p.51). Harper also
states that the capacity to host displaced people
in the safer areas of Iraq and in the neighbouring
countries of Syria and Jordan has already
been stretched thin. Today, the most important
questions revolve around whether or not these
population influxes are about to cease and
how we can understand future repercussions
against past trends. Wars and continuing conflicts
in the Middle East have turned many of
the region’s immigration countries into sending
countries, and this has been true of Iraq
just as it has been true of other states in the
Gulf. In the past, Iraq was a country of immigration
attracting many contract workers from
abroad, but with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait
in 1991, 2 million immigrants fled the country
and a significant number of Iraqis emigrated.
This was perhaps the beginning of mass emigration
from Iraq. However, Kurds, Turkmen
and other minorities had already begun fleeing
the country long before the invasion of Kuwait.
There are very few studies on Iraqi migration. 66
As a sending country, however, we cannot ignore
Iraq, as there are examples of large out
migrations. For example, half a million Iraqis,
mostly Kurds fleeing Saddam’s brutality have
sought refuge in Turkey at the beginning of
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