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Kurdish Taxi drivers run the gauntlet on
road to Baghdad
29.11.2006
By von Steve Negus |
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November
29, 2006
Chauffeurs brave threats from insurgents, highwaymen
and roadside bombs for $100 a week. Driving the road
is hit-or-miss. A ransom can wipe out a driver’s
savings. Other times long periods can go by
uneventfully.
Baghdad! Baghdad!" barks out a driver in the main
taxi centre in the Kurdish town of Erbil, the
capital of the autonomous region of Kurdistan (Iraq)
trying to round up custom for the four-hour trip to
the Iraqi capital. Despite insurgents, highway
robbers and roadside bombs, traffic along the
country's main trunk highway continues to flow.
Sectarian and ethnic conflict may have divided much of the centre of the
country into mutually suspicious enclaves, but many
Iraqi Kurds still have business or bureaucracy in
different parts of the country, and the drivers that
transport them still need to make a living.
Such dangerous journeys fuelled by economic
desperation explain in part why travellers are
killed on the roads in large numbers even though
Iraqis have long since realised it is not safe to
stray far from your home neighbourhood. |
Erbil Taxi, Illustration photo:Internet |
The route links the capital with Erbil, the main
city of the autonomous region of Kurdistan, now a
haven for Iraqis fleeing the violence of the south.
Passengers include traders running goods which are
cheaper in the south, or southerners living in Erbil
who need a stamp from the capital to get married, or
sell a house or car. The route takes them through
Sunni insurgent enclaves and Shia militia
strongholds on the outskirts of Baghdad. They pass
US convoys hit by roadside bombs and burning fuel
trucks waylaid by insurgents, but the road appears
just safe enough to make the trip worthwhile.
The worst stretches are barren regions like the
Jabal Hamreen hills, about two thirds of the way to
Baghdad, which are frequented by shepherds who
dabble in kidnapping. Insurgents sometimes appear
suddenly from roadside villages and Shia militias
sometimes block the road on the outskirts of the
capital as they did for a few days last week.
"You just see them in civilian clothes they show up
on the road, they stop you, they search your car and
check your ID. They don't tell you who they are.
They show you nothing," says one of the drivers. Of
the 50 to 70 drivers working the route, they say, at
least two have been killed and 10 kidnapped in the
past two years.
Driving the road is hit-or-miss. A ransom can wipe
out a driver's savings. Other times long periods can
go by uneventfully. Another driver said he was
stopped last October on the route, stuffed into a
trunk, and held in the hills for three days until
his family raised the $16,000 ransom. Some were less
lucky, such as a colleague who was killed 10 months
ago.
Their income is good by Iraqi standards, although
drivers claim that after fuel, food, hotel rooms,
and other overheads they only pocket $100 a week. In
a country awash with unemployment this is still
enough to justify the risk.
ftd de
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