Iraqi Australian

Iraqi Australian

Iraqi Australians are people of Iraqi origin living in Australia. Since the 1991 Gulf War, thousands of Iraqis have found refuge in Australia. The total of population is estimated to be as high as 80,000.

Australia's Iraqi-born population includes Kurds, Chaldeans Chaldea, Assyrians, Armenians, Mandeans, Turkmens and Jews.

The first year in which the Australian Census of Population and Housing recorded the Iraq-born separately was 1976, when the population was 2,273. By 1986, the population had risen to 4,516. By the end of the Gulf War in 1991, it numbered 5,186, mainly in New South Wales and Victoria.

Many recent arrivals have entered Australia under the Humanitarian programme. The Gulf War and the quelling of uprisings of the Shi'a and the Kurds in Iraq resulted in a large increase in the number of Iraqis coming to Australia after 1991.

There were 24,760 Iraq-born people in Australia at the 2001 Census, making up 0.6 per cent of the overseas-born population.