Iraq Emigration and Immigration

Online Sources

 * 1946-1971 Free Access: Africa, Asia and Europe, Passenger Lists of Displaced Persons, 1946-1971 Ancestry, free. Index and images. Passenger lists of immigrants leaving Germany and other European ports and airports between 1946-1971. The majority of the immigrants listed in this collection are displaced persons - Holocaust survivors, former concentration camp inmates and Nazi forced laborers, as well as refugees from Central and Eastern European countries and some non-European countries.
 * 1878-1960 UK and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960, at Ancestry.com, index and images. ($)

British Overseas Subjects

 * UK, Foreign and Overseas Registers of British Subjects, 1628-1969, index ($)
 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Births and Baptisms, Iraq, index and images, ($)
 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Banns and Marriages, Iraq, index and images, ($)
 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Deaths and Burials, index and images, ($)

Finding the Town of Origin in Iraq
If you are using emigration/immigration records to find the name of your ancestors' town in Iraq, see Iraq Finding Town of Origin for additional research strategies.

Iraq Emigration and Immigration
"Emigration" means moving out of a country. "Immigration" means moving into a country. Emigration and immigration sources list the names of people leaving (emigrating) or arriving (immigrating) in the country. These sources may be passenger lists, permissions to emigrate, or records of passports issued. The information in these records may include the emigrants’ names, ages, occupations, destinations, and places of origin or birthplaces. Sometimes they also show family groups.

Immigration to Iraq
To escape the civil war, over 160,000 Syrian refugees of varying ethnicities have fled to Iraq since 2012.

Emigration From Iraq

 * Refugees from Iraq have increased in number since the US-led invasion into Iraq in March 2003.
 * As of November 4, 2006, the UNHCR estimated that 1.8 million Iraqis had been displaced to neighboring countries, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month.
 * There are over 200,000 Iraqi refugees said to reside in Egypt and 100,000 more in the Persian Gulf states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
 * The main destinations for Iraqi immigration in the 2000s (decade) are the UK, Sweden, Germany, Canada, Australia and South America (i.e. Brazil).
 * However, there is a large Iraqi community in the United States and some of the community in the US arrived as early as the 1900s-10s.
 * In 2007, the UN said that about 40% of Iraq's middle class was believed to have fled and that most had fled systematic persecution and had no desire to return.
 * More than half of Iraqi Christians had fled the country since the 2003 US-led invasion.
 * Subsequently, the diaspora seemed to be returning, as security improved; the Iraqi government claimed that 46,000 refugees returned to their homes in October 2007 alone.