|
Iraqi Arabs flee to the safest city in
Kurdistan region
25.8.2007
|
|
|
|
August
25, 2007
Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan region (Iraq), --
Rich and poor, educated and illiterate, Arabs are
fleeing the killing fields of Iraq to settle among
and take charity from Kurds so brutally repressed by
the former Iraqi regime.
On a stretch of disused land in the mountain city of
Sulaimaniyah next to a bypass, scores of families
are seeking out an impoverished existence on aid
handouts, living like sardines under canvas or in
makeshift shacks.
Thaer Mahjoub Aziz, a father of nine and former
farmer who sends his children to beg for food,
slammed Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government for
ignoring Iraqis displaced within the country while
refugees abroad got all the headlines.
“They’re always speaking about reconciliation. But
what reconciliation? They did nothing, not even for
us homeless people. They only care about themselves.
“They spoke about the people in Syria and Jordan but
not about the people displaced inside Iraq,” he
thunders, furiously waving his monthly ration card,
saying that he and none of the other families can
collect their food here.
He has shacked up in the mud with a rag tail bunch
from Diyala, a province engulfed with fighting,
bombings and execution-style shootings, mostly
farmers who left behind land, livestock and homes to
live in penury.
Children patter around barefoot in torn clothes. One
girl plays hopscotch in the muck. One mother is
pregnant, destined to give birth — like other women
in the camp — alone without help.
“We have no clothes for our children. Sometimes we
cook rice.
Anything that’s available. We have no vegetables. We
have nothing. We’re in desperate need of help,” says
Um Duaa, her face blackened by the sun.
“In the last year and a half, 3,672 families—about
18,500 Arabs—have come to Sulaimaniyah. Plus we have
12,000 unmarried Iraqi Arabs here looking for work,”
says the Kurdish city’s chief statistician Mahmud
Othman.
He says 70 percent of all newcomers are Sunni Arabs,
fleeing death threats, sectarian killings and
chronic insecurity in the new Iraq.
Walid Chiad Nief, chosen by the local authorities as
head of the “Baghdad” part of the camp, says 53
families from different parts of the Iraqi capital
are living on the stretch of land but that only
three of them are Shiite.
Since 1991, the Kurds of Iraq achieved self-rule in
part of the country. Today's teenagers are the first
generation to grow up under Kurdish rule. Most Kurds
don’t speak Arabic, especially the younger
generation, so those divisions are pretty deep
between Kurds and Arabs, the 2nd language in
Kurdistan after Kurdish is English language. In the
new Iraqi Constitution, it is referred to as
Kurdistan region. Kurdistan region has all the
trappings of an independent state -- its own
constitution, its own parliament, its own flag, its
own army, its own border patrol, its own national
anthem, its own education system, even its own stamp
inked into the passports of visitors.
AFP
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
® 