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Iraq's Arabs are seeking safety among the
Kurds
11.8.2006 |
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In a reversal of roles, Iraq's Arabs are seeking
safety among the Kurds in Kurdistan-Iraq
Erbil, Kurdistan-Iraq, -- No one was happier
at the death in June of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the
proclaimed leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, than Jamal
Hussein.
The morning before an American air-strike killed
Iraq's top terrorist, the 38-year-old civil servant
woke up to find a note slipped under the door of his
flat in western Baghdad. It called him “a Shia son
of the devil” and said he had a week to leave or he
would be killed.
He had heard of such threats before and shrugged
them off, but this one was different: it was signed
by al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Within hours Mr Hussein, his wife and two young sons
had thrown their worldly goods into the back of a
cousin's pick-up truck and were heading north along
the bandit-ridden roads out of Baghdad towards the
calm of Kurdistan.
They are among thousands of Iraqis who have arrived
to Kurdistan in the northern self-rule provinces
since the bombing of a Shia shrine at Samarra in
February unleashed a wave of sectarian violence in
Baghdad and surrounding areas that is still going
on.
Since the first Gulf war ended in 1991, Iraqi
Kurdistan had been a safe haven for Kurds seeking to
protect themselves from Saddam Hussein's genocidal
tendencies.
Now it has become a sanctuary for anyone wanting to
escape sectarian violence in central Iraq,
especially in and around Baghdad.
Many Iraqis with cash and connections have already
resettled abroad. But Iraq's new ministry of
displacement and migration says that more than
200,000 Iraqis have been displaced within the
country by violence since February.
Some 1,250 families are relocating every week.
“Threats, rumours, revenge killings, terrorism,
kidnappings, sectarian strife, trigger-happy
American soldiers and just plain old violent crime”
are the main causes, says a senior civil servant.
Neither UN agencies nor Kurdish officials have exact
figures, but a fair guess is that, as well as the
200,000 mentioned as displaced, another
40,000-50,000 have sought sanctuary in Kurdistan.
Many are Christians and Kurds; and Baghdad's entire
Sabean-Mandean populace, which adheres to a
pre-Islamic faith and numbers around 25,000, is said
to have asked the Kurdish authorities for a haven. A
lot, however, are middle-class Sunni Arabs from
Baghdad and Mosul, Iraq's biggest northern city.
The influx has squeezed Kurdish services. Housing is
scarce; rents are soaring. But most Kurds, with
their own long history of uncertainty and
displacement, have been kind to the newcomers.
Moreover, Kurdish officials are seizing a chance to
beef up the workforce.
Labourers from southern Iraq now toil away in the
heat on Kurdistan's many building projects, while
some of Baghdad's top academics are now teaching in
Kurdish universities, dentists and doctors are
finding jobs, and experienced civil servants such as
Mr Hussein are working in Iraqi Kurdistan's
ministries.
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