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Kurdistan on aid front line for Iraqi Arab
families
20.11.2006
By Jonathan Steele in Erbil (Hewlêr) |
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Border towns struggle to cope
with huge numbers, Thousands of Iraqis Arabs
displaced by sectarian rage
November 20, 2006 -
Erbil, Kurdistan Region (Iraq) , -- Omar
sits with his wife and three small children on their
only items of furniture, a few cushions and a cheap
carpet which covers the floor of a bare concrete
room. They escaped from Baghdad last month, joining
the quarter of a million Iraqis who have fled from
their homes since sectarian violence exploded this
year.
He is a Sunni who used to live in the capital city's
mainly Shia district of Husseiniya but every Iraqi
community - Shia, Sunni, Christian and Kurd - has
been hit by the rage and revenge that are destroying
mixed urban neighbourhoods and turning the country
into a patchwork of fear-ridden mono-ethnic
enclaves.
Most flee to areas of their own sect or ethnic
group, but Omar - who was afraid to give his real
name - came to Kurdistan autonomous Region because
it is Iraq's safest region, even though he has no
friends or relatives here. "I speak no Kurdish but
some people here who served in the Iraqi army speak
Arabic. Everyone's very hospitable."
"About a thousand Sunni families lived in Husseiniya,
but almost all have left by now," he says. A car
mechanic, he has not yet found work in Kurdistan. He
pays $150 (£80) a month out of the family's savings
for their room and toilet .
In another part of the bleak village of Sewys, on
the windy plain east of Kurdistan's capital Erbil (Hewlêr),
a Kurdish estate agent explains why he left Mosul,
Iraq's third largest city. An armed Arab came into
the office where he worked as an estate agent in a
mixed Arab-Kurdish area. "He told me they were part
of the resistance to the Americans and needed my
house for an operation. When I refused, the gunman
rang his friend who was in a car outside and said
'Let's go to his house anyway'." Samir (who declines
to give his last name) closed his office and drove
straight to Erbil.
On the phone his wife told him three cars had
appeared at the house and the men inside were
watching it. Fortunately, they did not enter and his
wife left for Erbil two days later with their
children.
Samir produces an A4 piece of paper he says was sent
to a relative last month. It begins with a few
verses of the Qur'an and the phrase in Arabic: "The
people mentioned below must be killed because they
are drug dealers, spies, or traitors working against
Iraq." Twelve names and addresses follow. Two are
identified as "peshmerga" (the Kurdish militia), one
as a "member of the national guard", and the fourth
as an "unpatriotic Kurd".
There is no way of telling whether the death list,
which is signed starkly "Intelligence Committee", is
authentic but Samir's family took no chances. "My
brother's name is on the list. He left immediately
for Syria," says Samir's wife.
Sewys's previous population of 3,000 has increased
by half in the last few months. Escapees choose it
because house rents are lower than in Erbil.
A similar increase is affecting Ein Kawa, Erbil's
mainly Christian enclave, which has seen an influx
of 7,000 families from Baghdad and Mosul in the last
few months. Schools have had to hire Arabic-speaking
teachers and add an afternoon shift in Arabic. The
church gives $150 a month to Christians who need it.
A foreign-funded NGO, the Public Aid Organisation,
sends social workers out to give legal advice and
assess what help the displaced need. Iraq still has
a system of subsidised food rations, dating from the
Saddam Hussein era, but families who leave their
home areas have difficulty re-registering for it
elsewhere.
Karim Sinjari, Kurdistan's interior minister, says
the region has received close to 50,000 people since
the crisis began. "The Christians have relatives
here. Kurds are similar. It's the Arabs who have
difficulties," he says.
Dreading an even bigger influx if central and
southern Iraq collapse into all-out civil war, he
has approached the UN's refugee agency for help. "We
won't close our borders but if the numbers soar,
what can we do? The UN says we shouldn't resort to
refugee camps, but we say where can we put them?"
The Kurdish government offers no financial help to
the displaced. But it gives jobs to the doctors,
professors, and engineers among them. "We encourage
them to stay here rather than go to Syria or
Jordan," Mr Sinjari says.
The International Organisation of Migration reported
this month on a survey of the displaced in six of
Iraq's 18 governorates. In Kirkuk, 55% had no access
to healthcare and 70% of children had not been
vaccinated.
IOM started emergency aid to the displaced this
summer with US funding. But with no sign of the
number of displaced falling, it is asking for a
further $20m to continue providing assistance.
guardian co.uk
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