Iraq is set to announce a two-day curfew to hold its first census in 27 years.

Iraq, ravaged by sectarian conflict, foreign interventions, and civil war for the past three decades, has finally reached a point at which the government feels secure enough to carry out a census. The last census was taken in 1997, but only in 15 of Iraq’s 18 provinces, three of which were out of former leader Saddam Hussein‘s control at the time of the census.