The problem of Kurdish refugees and displaced has been created over the 20th century in the Middle East, and continues to loom today. Displacements of Kurds had already been happening within the Ottoman Empire, on pretext of local rebellions' suppression, over the period of its domination of the northern Fertile Crescent and the adjacent areas of Zagros and Taurus mauntains a.k.a. as Kurdistan, were the Kurdish population originates. In the early 20th century, massive desplacements were forced upon Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire (especially during the First World War and the Turkish War of Independence), but many of the Kurds, as well, suffered similar attitude as some of their tribal confederations cooperated with Ottomans, while others were opposing it and revolted in several areas. The situation for Kurds in the newborn nation of Turkey turned disastrous on the course of the 1920s and 1930s, when large scale Kurdish rebellions, resulted in massive massacres and expulsion of hundreds of thousands. Since the 1970s, renewed violence of the Turkish-Kurdish confict created about 3,000,000 displaced, many of which remain unsettled.
In Iraq, the Kurdish strive for autonomy and independence loomed into armed conflicts since the 1919 Mahmud Barzanji revolt. The displacement however became most significant during the Iraqi-Kurdish conflict and parallel active Arabizations programs of the Ba'athist regime,[1] which looked to cleanse northern Iraq of its Kurdish majority. Tens of thousands of Kurds turned displaced and fled the war zones following First and Second Kurdish Iraqi Wars in 1960s and 1970s. The Iran–Iraq War, which spanned from 1980 to 1988, the first Gulf War and subsequent rebellions all together generated several millions of primarily Kurdish refugees, who mostly found refuge in Iran, while others dispersed into Kurdish diaspora in Europe and the Americas. Iran alone provided asylum for 1,400,000 Iraqi refugees, mostly Kurds, who had been uprooted as a result of the Persian Gulf War (1990–91) and the subsequent rebellions.
Today, a large portion of the Kurdish population is composed of Kurdish refugees and displaced and their descendants. Refugees themselves still comprise a significant proportion of Iranian and Syrian Kurds. Recently, the Syrian Kurdish community was declaired to be granted civil rights as part of the reforms by Bashar al-Assad, as an attempt to pacify the 2011 Syrian uprising. However, human rights groups said only 3,000 out of some 200,000 stateless Kurds were given an official status in Syria.
For decades, Saddam Hussein 'Arabized' northern Iraq.[1] Sunni Arabs have driven out at least 70,000 Kurds from the Mosul’s western half.[2] Nowadays, eastern Mosul is Kurdish and western Mosul is Sunni Arab.[3]
The policies of Kurdification by KDP and PUK after 2003 tried to reverse the previous trend of Arabization, with non-Kurds being pressured to move, in particular Assyrian Christians and Iraqi Turkmen, which have prompted serious inter-ethnic problems.[4]
In total up to 3,000,000 people (mainly Kurds) have been displaced in the Turkey-PKK conflict,[5] an estimated 1,000,000 of which were still internally dispalced as of 2009.[6]
In recent years, many Kurdish asylum seekers from both Iran and Iraq have settled in the United Kingdom (especially in the town of Dewsbury and in some northern areas of London), which has sometimes caused media controversy over their right to remain.[7] There have been tensions between Kurds and the established Muslim community in Dewsbury,[8][9] which is home to very traditional mosques such as the Markazi.
There was substantial immigration of Kurds into North America, who are mainly political refugees and immigrants seeking economic opportunity. An estimated 100,000 Kurds are known to live in the United States, with 50,000 in Canada and less than 15,000 in Australia.
Almost all of the Kurdish Jews of north Iraq, who were numbered around 30,000 in 1950, were evacuated to Israel during operation Ezra and Nehemiah. A significant portion of those Jews self-identified as part of the Kurdish nation, despite their Jewish ethnicity and religion, and some still consider themselves as Kurds. All together 150,000 Iraqi and Kurdish Jews were encouraged to leave in 1950 by the Iraqi Government, which had eventually ordered in 1951 "the expulsion of Jews who refused to sign a statement of anti-Zionism."[10] Significant number of Kurdish Jews composed the exodus wave of Jews from from Iran in the 1950s, with only tiny communities remaining today in Sanandaj and Mahabad. Most of the newly arriving Kurdish Jews were housed in Israeli transition camps, known as Maabarot, later incorporated into development towns. Today they and their descendants are a major part of the 150,000-200,000 strong Kurdish Jewish community in Israel.
As many as 50,000 Yazidi refugees from Iraq arrived in Syria during the Iraq War.[11]