In Pictures
Displaced Iraqis wait and hope for fighting to end
Most of the 8,500 residents of the Laylan camp south of Kirkuk fled after ISIL tore through their country.
Laylan refugee camp, Iraq – In the Laylan camp for displaced Iraqis, 20km south of Kirkuk, residents are waiting to see how the battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) will unfold. Most of the 8,500 residents fled fighting between ISIL members, local militias and government forces last year after ISIL tore through Iraq.
By a cluster of tents, teenagers gather to watch a barber carefully razor marine cuts in his makeshift shop; no-one here wants to be mistaken for an ISIL member.
Across the camp in another tent, the mood is sombre. Abdullah Hazbar, a camp resident, lays out the ID cards that belonged to his children, who he says were killed in an aerial bombardment. “We put a white flag on our convoy of cars to show we are civilians,” he says dejectedly, noting the family was also later denied entry to the relative safety of Kurdistan for treatment.
