STORY: UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, UNHCR High Commissioner António Guterres and Under Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, Valerie Amos visited Kawergosk refugee camp near Erbil in Northern Iraq on Tuesday talking to refugee families and seeing the facilities.
Kawergosk hosts 13,000 Syrian refugees who arrived in August 2013, amid the influx of some 60,000 people at the time.
The Kurdistan Region of Iraq is among areas in the region currently seeing arrivals of Syrians. Border crossing points there from Syria were all but closed from mid-September until the start of January, when the Peshkabour crossing was reopened.
Since then some 5,000 people have crossed, and several hundred now arrive every day. Of these only around 900 have registered with UNHCR. These people are transferred to a reception centre where they are given basic assistance before being moved to the Gawilan refugee camp in transport provided by IOM.
