BAGHDAD - Iraqi forces will begin evacuating from next week squatters illegally occupying the Baghdad homes of people who fled at the height of the sectarian conflict, officials said on Saturday. The move is designed to encourage people who are the legal owners of their homes to return, said Daniel Endres, representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. "This measure will certainly increase the return but it is a process that will take time because people want to see first how it turns out," he told AFP.Iraqi military spokesman Major General Qassim Atta said on Wednesday that the squatters, who themselves are refugees from other parts of the country or from Baghdad itself, have until Sunday to vacate these occupied houses. "Iraqi forces will be on alert from September 2 to evacuate the homes of the displaced families," said Atta. "We cannnot postpone this decision."
The issue of displaced people has become a crisis in Baghdad. A recent study by Iraq's ministry of displaced and migrants said that of the 212,063 families displaced across Iraq, 43 percent are from Baghdad.