DAHUK, Iraq — According to UNHCR official statistics, 214,372 Syrians, many of them Kurdish, have fled to Iraq as a result of the Syrian revolution, with 98% of them living in the Kurdistan Region. “Forty-five percent of Syrian refugees are living in the camps and 55% are non-camp residents,” Youssef Mahmoud, the public information associate at the UNHCR, told Al-Monitor.

According to Mahmoud, the latest crises in Iraq have affected the situation of Syrian refugees, pushing some of them to return to their home country: “25,301 Syrian refugees have returned to Syria in legal and official ways since January 2014, and in the last 30 days, 2,027 refugees crossed the border back to Syria,” Mahmoud said.

Sameer Hawaz, 24, arrived a year ago to Iraqi Kurdistan from Hasakah, Syria. He found a job, only to lose it shortly after as a result of the violence that rocked northern Iraq. Hawaz spoke to Al-Monitor at the Iraqi-Syrian border just before he headed back into Syria. “When I first arrived, I started working in Kurdistan. But I lost my job and have been looking for opportunities for six months now. It became extremely difficult to find a job as the situation is getting worse with the Islamic State [IS].”

Nazha Salih, 28, another refugee, was heading back to Syria with her two children. She told Al-Monitor, “My husband returned to Syria two weeks ago because he lost his job, and I have to be with him.”