The Makhmur refugee camp (also spell Makhmour), which was founded in 1998, is located in the Makhmur District, Iraq. About 12,000 Kurdish refugees, who fled the civil war between Kurds and the Turkish army in the 1990s, live in this refugee camp. The refugees and their descendants stem from the depopulated Kurdish villages in Turkey. The Turkish authorities claim they had to depopulate the villages as they have been infiltrated by PKK militants.