Last week during the short Parliamentary recess I visited the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. I was impressed with the peaceful situation, booming economy, social, health and infrastructure development.
Domiz refugee camp Kurdistan Twenty years ago the Kurds had to flee from Saddam Hussein into the mountains and to Turkey. The democratic Kurdish Regional Government are proud of those in Britain who helped their liberation. Today they host 250,000 refugees fleeing from another brutal Baathist, Bashar Assad and the civil war in Syria.
I saw the Domiz refugee camp where 75,000 including 13,000 children live in densely packed crowded temporary shelters with no prospect of an early return home. Despite the welcome agreement to remove chemical weapons, over 120,000 have died and 7 million Syrians forced from their homes, including 4 million into neighbouring countries with little prospect of an early ceasefire or political solution.
http://www.mikegapes.org.uk/column-for-ilford-recorder-21-november-2013
