This report provides information on the security situation, armed actors, and the impact of conflict on civilians in Iraq between 1 August 2020 – 31 October 2021, as well as relevant context information in view of the assessment of international protection status determination for Iraqi asylum seekers, notably subsidiary protection and in particular for use in EUAA's country guidance development on Iraq (2022).
This report is an update of the EASO COI report: Iraq, Security Situation 2021, published in October 2020.
This report is a part of a series of Iraq reports produced in 2021-2022 and should be read in conjunction with the EASO COI Report – Iraq: Key socio-economic indicators published in November 2021 and the EUAA COI Report – Targeting of Individuals published in January 2022.
The report is divided into two chapters. The first chapter focuses on the general security situation in Iraq by providing a general background of recent conflicts in Iraq, the current political situation, and information on the main armed actors in Iraq and Kurdistan Region of Iraq and their territorial presence and role. It is followed by a general overview of the current security situation in the reference period, as it relates to the nature of the violence and impact on civilians.
The second chapter provides a governorate-level description of the security situation. Each governorate chapter includes a map, brief description of the governorate, background conflict dynamics and armed actors present in the area, 2020-2021 security trends, including information on civilian deaths, security incidents and trends, armed confrontations (etc.), civilian infrastructure impacted and the existence of unexploded ordnances UXO and Explosive Remnants of War ERW, and information on displacement and return.
EUAA would like to acknowledge the following national asylum departments as co-drafters of this report, together with EUAA:
- Belgium, Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons, Cedoca (Centre for Documentation and Research); and
- Sweden, Swedish Migration Agency, Section for Information Analysis
EUAA would also like to acknowledge ACCORD, the Austrian Centre for Country of Origin and Asylum Research and Documentation, as co-drafter of this report
The following departments and organisations have reviewed respective parts of this report:
- Finland, Finnish Immigration Service, Country Information Service;
- France, Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA), Information, Documentation and Research Division;
- Slovakia, Migration Office of the Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic, Department of Documentation and Foreign Cooperation; and
- ARC, the Asylum Research Centre.
The drafting of this report was finalised on 26 November 2021. Some additional information was added during the finalisation of this report in response to feedback received during the quality control process, until 10 December 2021.
This report was written according to the EASO COI Report Methodology (2019).
Politique de traitement
Depuis 2013, la situation sécuritaire dans la région a été largement déterminée par la montée de l'État islamique en Irak et en Syrie (EI) et par la lutte contre celui-ci. Le 9 décembre 2017, le premier ministre alors en fonction, M. al-Abadi, a annoncé que la dernière partie de la zone occupée par l'EI en territoire irakien avait été reprise, mettant ainsi fin à la guerre terrestre contre l'organisation terroriste. La victoire sur l’EI et la reconquête des zones occupées par l’organisation ont manifestement eu un impact positif et tangible sur les conditions de sécurité en Irak. Toutefois, les cellules de l’EI restent actives dans plusieurs provinces et les forces de sécurité irakiennes, les milices chiites et les peshmergas kurdes mènent toujours des opérations contre l’organisation. Cela se traduit par un niveau de violences, une échelle de la violence aveugle et un impact du conflit sur la population qui varient fortement d’une région à l’autre. Par ailleurs, dans le cadre du conflit avec le PKK, l’armée turque procède à des attaques aériennes et mène des opérations terrestres contre des cibles liées au PKK dans les zones frontalières du nord de l’Irak.