During January 2016, the Iraq Internally Displaced Persons Information Centre (Iraq IIC) handled a record 2,833 calls, closing 99% of all cases by the end of the month. Further, it received its first missing person report and it experienced a dramatic increase in calls from returnees from Salah al-Din.

Through the start of the year, the Iraq IIC continued its multi-media, multi-platform campaign to raise awareness of its toll-free hotline number and services across the country. Key to this campaign is the continued dissemination of bulk SMS broadcasts as part of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) effort on behalf of Iraq’s three telecommunications providers: Asiacell, Korek, and Zain. Korek kicked off the campaign in Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) in December 2015 and the response was immediate.