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Kurds in the Netherlands

Ethnic group in the Netherlands

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  • 3 chapters

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Through Iraq

There are different accounts for the actual Kurdish population within the Netherlands. "The number of Kurds in the Netherlands is not clear, as the Kurds hold different nationalities (Turkish, Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian) and are categorized on the basis of their nationalities in governmental statistics; the figures run from 15,000 up to almost 100,000." Other sources claim that the number of ethnic Kurds in the Netherlands is around 70,000 people.

The Kurdish community in the Netherlands among which the Turkish Kurds and Iraqi Kurds make up the largest group of Kurds in the Netherlands, exceeding the numbers of Iranian Kurds and Syrian Kurds.

Immigration history

In the Netherlands, Kurdish immigrant workers from Turkey first arrived in the second half of the 1960s. Thousands of Kurdish refugees and political refugees fled from Turkey during the 1970s and onward, from Iraq and Iran during the 1980s and 1990s, and from Syria especially during the Syrian Civil War.

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