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Thousands of displaced Iraqi Kurds
struggle to survive 24.8.2006
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DOHUK,
Kurdistan-Iraq, August 24, 2006 , -- "I am a farmer
without a farm," sighed Khalid Mohammed Ismail as he
sat in a coffee shop in the centre of Dohuk, a
province in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq.
"I live off my sons," he said, his pride clearly
hurt.
Ismail was one of almost 141,000 villagers displaced
two decades ago when deposed ruler Saddam Hussein's
forces launched the eight-stage Anfal military
campaign against the minority Kurdish community.
Between February and September of 1988, Iraqi forces
swept through thousands of Kurdish villages, killing
people in deadly chemical attacks and razing their
houses to the ground.
Saddam and six former members of his regime are now
being tried for the alleged massacre of 182,000
Kurdish men, women and children.
But in addition to those killed during the savage
military attacks, thousands of other Kurds were
displaced from their homes.
Some like Ismail, whose village was near the
northern city of Mosul, were forcefully removed by a
regional policy of "Arabisation".
Ismail cannot return home now unless Arabs staying
there are transferred somewhere else.
There are others like Lukman Khalid Weisy, whose
village near Dohuk was destroyed during the Anfal
offensive. He and his neighbors continue to live in
precarious conditions, barely managing to survive.
"The problem of those displaced is more than their
numbers," says Musa Ali Bakr, a former Kurdish
peshmerga militant. Bakr is now a senior official in
Kurdistan's ministry for displaced and is
responsible for Dohuk and Mosul.
"Saddam Hussein carried out a systematic destruction
of Kurdistan," he said.
"He not only displaced people, razed their villages
and destroyed the economic fabric, but also broke up
family units and eliminated the conditions for their
possible return."
Bakr said such problems were not fully understood by
the international community.
"We must rehabilitate their villages, but it is not
easy as their safety must be guaranteed," he told
AFP. "It is also essential that these villages are
accessible with proper roads."
Other crucial amenities mentioned by Bakr were
"electricity, water, schools, social life, a centre
for arts or a football club".
Diplaced people had become accustomed to these
things in the cities where they have been staying
for nearly 20 years, he explained.
Bakr also called for the creation of new jobs.
"Families have grown. A farm which used to feed 10
people can't nourish 20 today," he said.
"It is thus necessary to create small companies that
will employ these people," he noted, warning that
any amount invested in Kurdistan would be in vain
"if these conditions were not met".
The human catastrophe wrought by Anfal has
transformed into a social drama, as witnessed by
Weisy's family which lives in Fort Nizarky, the same
prison it was locked up in during the offensive.
The family's village still lies in ruins.
Ismail, who was displaced by Arabisation policies,
has put his hopes in a commission that looks into
cases like his, but the body's work has stalled
owing to prevailing tension between various ethnic
groups in and around Mosul.
In Mam Shivan, 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Dohuk,
14 families occupy the site of their old village.
A team from a US aid agency, American Concern for
Kids, comes each week to filter spring water from
the village which is unsuitable for consumption.
Dohuk's water supply network stops two kilometres
(1.5 miles) away from Mam Shivan.
"There is a lack of political will. Here the ground
is fertile. If the villages are connected to the
water supply network, 100 to 200 families can return
to the village," said farmer Kamal Jaffer Hamo.
"What was destroyed over 30 years requires 6O years
to be rebuilt," Bakr said.
AFP
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