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194 Iranian Kurdish refugees still stuck
in no-man's land
16.8.2007
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More
than 650 of the Kurds were eventually allowed to
join families abroad but 194 Kurds remain struggle
to survive
August
16, 2007
Iraq-Jordan Border, -- In the barren,
wind-swept plain between Jordan and Iraq, nearly 200
Iranian Kurds struggle to survive with little
shelter and international help, holding out hope of
resettlement in the West. The UN relief agency has
told the Kurds- half of them children- that their
only option is to move to Kurdistan autonomous
region (Kurdish-controlled parts of Iraq). So far
the Kurds have refused, remaining in this barren
moonscape under a broiling sun in summer and
bone-numbing cold in winter. "We are refugees, but
we are deprived of all refugee rights," said Ismail
Karimi. "Aren't we human? Aren't our children human?
Their plight began in January 2005 when hundreds of
Iranian Kurds left a refugee camp near Ramadi after
attacks by Sunni insurgents. They had lived in the
camp since fleeing Iran soon after the 1979 Islamic
Revolution because of their opposition to the new
regime. The Kurds hoped to seek refuge in Jordan and
eventually reunite with relatives in Europe and
North America. But the Jordanians refused to allow
them to enter the country. And returning to the
Ramadi area was too dangerous as violence in the
area raged out of control. More than 650 of the
Kurds were eventually allowed to join families
abroad. But 194 of them remain here, unable to
qualify for resettlement because their relatives
abroad are not from their nuclear families.
Those left behind subsist in a makeshift settlement
of cardboard and corrugated metal boxes, which serve
as sleeping quarters and classrooms for the
children, in the kilometer-wide no man's land
between Iraq and Jordan. With no sewage or water
system, the inhabitants drink dirty brown water
collected during the winter rains and stored in
plastic containers.
Food comes mostly from the International Committee
of the Red Cross and an Iranian-American relief
organization, the Norooz Foundation of Charlotte,
North Carolina, which is close to Farah Diba, widow
of Iran's deposed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The
Foundation also provides medicines and educational
materials for the children. Wires strung up through
the camp siphon off electricity from across the
Iraqi border to run a couple of TV sets- their only
window to the outside world. Foundation official
Bahman Maalizadeh said despair is growing among the
refugees. "When I asked what I could bring, one
woman told me, 'Please bring poison. I can't bear my
life in this camp anymore. Our circumstances are
brutal,"' Maalizadeh said during a visit to the camp
last week.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has advised
the refugees that they have no legal right to
resettlement, either in Jordan or the West, and that
they should go to Irbil, capital of the Kurdish
self-governing region in northern Iraq, where they
would be housed in a camp with UNHCR services. "They
have been advised over and over again that they
should go to Irbil where we are able to help them,"
said Vandana Patel of the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees, or UNHCR.
But the Kurds have refused the offer, citing fear
for their personal safety and don't want to stay in
a camp. The Kurds belong to a small sect known as "Ahl-e-Haq,"
a religion that combines tenets of Islam with Iran's
pre-Islamic Zoroastrianism, denounced by Islamic
hardliners.
Members of the sect in northern Iraq were attacked
by Islamic militants in 2001 and driven from their
homes. Another minority sect, the Yazidis, was
targeted Tuesday in northern Iraq by suicide bombers
who killed at least 175 people and wounded 200
others, the Iraqi military said. "We are not only
victims of terrorism in Iraq and before that in
Iran.
We are also victims of the wrong politics of the
UNHCR because we are living for three decades as
refugees," said Khabat Mokhaabadi, 22, who was born
in the camp near Ramadi. Jordan has also refused to
allow the Kurds to live in a more substantial
refugee camp housing Palestinians just inside its
side of the border. All that is unsettling for
family of Qumar Akhdar, a 2-year-old boy who suffers
from a brain disorder. Earlier this year, Qumar and
his mother, Akhdar Ahmadi, were given permission to
enter Jordan to see a specialist. The doctor
recommended an operation but said the child would
have to stay in the country for six months of
recuperation. The Jordanians are considering
allowing Qumar in for the treatment. "Qumar's
getting worse since we returned," said Ahmadi. "I'm
up with him all night long and giving him medicine
but it seems to be of no use. His head is swelling
more. Perhaps he's dying."
AP
Iranian Kurdistan
**
Iranian Kurdistan (Kurdish: Kurdistana Îranę or
Kurdistana Rojhilat (Eastern Kurdistan) or Rojhilatę
Kurdistan (East of Kurdistan)) is an unofficial name
for the parts of Iran inhabited by Kurds and has
borders with Iraq and Turkey. It includes the
greater parts of West Azerbaijan province, Kurdistan
Province, Kermanshah Province, and Ilam Province.
Kurds form the majority of the population of this
region with an estimated population of 4 million.
The region is the eastern part of the greater
cultural-geographical area called Kurdistan.
More about Iranian Kurdistan
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