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Kurdistan: City trench that bars way to
Arab refugees and killers 31.3.2007 |
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March 31,
2007
Erbil, Kurdistan region (Iraq), --
Cars clog the narrow, pitted road that leads into
Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region of Iraq,
connecting the city with the rest of the country.
Nervous and exhausted passengers clutch their
identification papers as they inch towards the
Kirkuk checkpoint. One by one, the vehicles are
searched and male travellers are patted down.
“Every day about 2,000 to 3,000 people are trying to
get into Erbil. About 80 per cent of them are
displaced people,” said Ahmed Khalil, in charge of
the city’s two checkpoints.
Thousands of Iraqis are fleeing the incipient civil
war and heading for sanctuary in Kurdistan region
(the Kurdish part of northern Iraq). The Iraqi Red
Crescent Society estimates that about 160,000 Iraqis
have moved there.
Once through the security checkpoints, Iraqis must
provide the name of a Kurdish guarantor. Without it,
they will be turned away. And it is much harder for
Arab Muslims to be allowed in than for Christians or
Kurds. Mr Khalil said that 60 people a day are
turned away for having no guarantor.
“The fighting and bloodshed is practically on our
doorstep,” said an official who did not want to be
named. “Mosul and Kirkuk are less than an hour away.
The terrorists are Arabs. It’s no wonder the Kurds
don’t want any more Arabs in.”
The Kurdish region is enjoying growing prosperity
and safety. There is relative unity in the
autonomous region. Security is the highest priority.
It is tight and effective, so bombings and other
attacks are rare.
The Kurds have dug a trench, 5m wide and 4m deep
(16ft by 13ft), around the city, patrolled by
Kurdish militia.
“All we have is manpower and our brains to try to
outwit the terrorists — and our hearts to make sure
this land is kept safe.
We would do this work for free if we had to,” Mr
Khalil said, adding that terrorist attacks have
decreased since the trench was built.
He said that dozens are arrested attempting to cross
the trench every day. Terrorists, he said, send
animals over with
explosives strapped to them, but they cannot cross
the trench.
At the checkpoints, up to 50 guns are confiscated a
day. Even families carry arms, for many have braved
perilous journeys to get here.
There were no weapons in Farrah Abdul’s car because
the driver had dropped off the pistol in a nearby
town on the way. It took Mrs Abdul and her
14-year-old daughter, Barah, three days and several
cars to get to Erbil from her home in Amariya, a
Sunni neighbourhood of Baghdad. Her husband, a Shia,
had already fled with their two sons when he
received death threats. A week later gunmen fired at
her house and a bullet narrowly missed Barah’s head.
“We’ve seen so many friends and family killed. We
were running away from death,” Mrs Abdul said.
With the influx of Iraqis into the region, rents
have rocketed. Families have also become entangled
in Iraq’s pervasive bureaucracy. Mrs Abdul’s
children cannot enrol in school here because in the
panic to leave Baghdad they did not have time to
pick up the documents required to change schools.
“It’s too dangerous for us to go back to Baghdad to
get the school certificate,” Mrs Abdul said.
“Friends of ours got their neighbours to pick up the
certificate for them. When they left the school they
were shot dead for being traitors — for helping
Shias to escape.”
Families cannot get monthly food rations until they
reregister, which takes six months.
Christian Iraqis, however, are welcomed with aid.
They receive £45 a month from the regional
government and, in some cases, land in their
villages of origin. The move is viewed as a tactical
one to swell the non-Arab population and gain
support from the West as the region asserts its
independence from the rest of Iraq.
“It used to make no difference if you were Sunni,
Shia, Christian or Kurd. Now it does,” Mrs Abdul
said. “I just want to go home. The problem is, I no
longer have one.”
timesonline co.uk
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