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Iraq refugee children play at a red Crescent transit camp in Ruweished, 2003. FILE PHOTO

In a small room, sitting among his family members, Mahmud Sayd Qadir, 49, appeared fed up with being a refugee inside his own country, particularly when he has not been paid any of the financial aid the government promised him. Qadir is a father of five and the caretaker of his ill mother.

"We get promises and are given nothing," he complained, noting that his family was promised about a half million Iraqi Dinars, or US$400, a year ago. He still counts on it. With that amount of money, "at least I would have been able to buy a new heater to warm up in the winter," said Mahmud, who left Mosul four years ago to save his family. He works as a building laborer in Duhok, and is confused about whom to blame for his condition--the (Iraqi Prime Minister) Nuri al-Maliki government or the Ministry of Migration and Immigrants.

Sabir Suleman, from Baghdad and now living in Duhok also for four years, is in a similar position. He says he knows many other immigrants like them have received aid, but nothing has arrived for them. "We spoke out enough and complained to relevant organizations, but they do nothing," said Suleman, who appeared disinterested in being interviewed.

Duhok hosts 18,365 people who escaped violence from different Iraqi cities. Their life conditions remain a concern. Hundreds of their family members are deprived of the monthly payments they are supposed to receive stated the Directorate of Migration and Immigrants in the city. The director, Muhammed Abdullah Hamo, put the responsibilities on the Iraqi federal government. Those families, mostly Kurds and Christians originally from Mosul and Baghdad, suffer problems of employment, housing, and health care, said Hamo. He called on the Baghdad government to send these people monthly payments.

Displaced children are particularly burdened as they have to take long routes to get to schools that teach in Arabic. Such schools are few in Duhok, and the students lack transportation means, explained Hikmat Omer Sharfani, head of the Harikari Organization for Immigrants and displaces affairs. He noted that, among the immigrants, some people with chronic diseases don't own treatment coupons and can't afford medication.

Sharfani noted that less than half of the total displaced families in Duhok have been given aid by the Iraqi government. "However, we, in contribution with other international organizations, keep offering services and aid," he stated, adding that that more than 500 families benefited from their program of distributing rations and health services in 2009.

Sherzad Muhammad Salman, a Harikari Organization lawyer who offers family consultancy, stated that only 43 families of those recorded by their organization have returned to their cities. According to him, most of the families either are not willing to go back or they cannot afford the transportation costs.

Relevantly, the Iraqi Parliament, within the law budget for 2010, allocated an amount of 200 billion Iraqi dinars for the Ministry of Migration and Immigrants, stated Parliament member Abdul-Khaliq Zangana. He described the amount inadequate to end immigrants' problems inside the country. The parliamentary Committee of Migration and Immigrants had demanded for 400 billion ID, but this suggestion was not approved, he added.

Kurdistan Region cities have received thousands of families from central and southern Iraq, particularly Mosul and Baghdad, since 2006 due to the rise of sectarian violence.