IOM-Iraq Mission Displacement Tracking Matrix: Integrated Location Assessment, March 2017

As of December 2016, there were 3,064,1462 IDPs displaced due to conflict in Iraq, living in 3,700 locations across the country. Although the pace of these displacement movements has slowed steadily since May 2015, and their absolute numbers have been decreasing since August 2016, military operations and generalised violence have still been producing waves of displacement. All of the nine major military campaigns conducted in 2016 have created new displacement —such as the current ones along the Mosul corridor— and depending on the intensity and length of fighting in Mosul, Hawiga and Telafar, it is highly likely that in 2017 as many as 1.2 million additional civilians may be forced to flee their homes.3 These displacement waves take place amid continuous return movements: 1,273,824 displaced individuals have been able to return to their places of origin between 2014 and 2016. Given the scale of these flows, the situation remains challenging for most Iraqis, whether IDPs, returnees or host communities.
Until now, data on displacement and return movements in Iraq have always been presented separately.

This is the first attempt at conducting a simultaneous, integrated and comparative assessment of both populations, profiling them geographically and according to main themes. Focusing on IDPs and returnees at the same time allows to capture overarching trends of population movements; evaluate the burden that forced displacement is posing on some governorates; and outline social and living conditions, basic needs, intentions and vulnerabilities shared by IDPs and returnees (and host communities).