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Ex-Erbil Citadel Residents Bemoan
Relocation
26.11.2009
By Hogar Hasan in Erbil, Kurdistan region of Iraq
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Many of 800 families moved to preserve ancient site
bitter about their transfer and claim they were
inadequately compensated.
November 26, 2009
ERBIL-Hewlêr,
Kurdistan region 'Iraq', — Mahmood Yasim’s childhood
recollections of Erbil’s ancient fortress are the
stuff of storybooks: clambering through crumbling
palaces, playing in abandoned courtyards built in a
bygone age and running amok in the labyrinths of
winding, narrow alleyways.
“Everyone used to know each other back then. We were
living in houses without permission and they were
very old and part collapsed – but our life was good.
We were close to everything – the bazaar, hospitals
and schools as well,” said 20-year-old Yasim, who
grew up with his seven siblings in the
8,000-year-old citadel.
One day in 2007, Yasim came home from school to
discover that everything changed.
“I was told near my home that we had to move away.
The government put patrols at each gate and they
didn’t allow people to bring in food or gas for
cooking. Nothing that we could buy with food ration
coupons was allowed in,” Yasim said. “Many of us
still did not believe that we would be moved away.
But eventually we had to.”
More than two years after a government-mandated
relocation, former occupants of the Erbil citadel
complain of poor health services and economic
opportunities in the resettlement area where they
agreed to move, some ten kilometres outside of
Erbil.
Roughly 830 families, many of whom had been
squatting at the citadel for decades, were relocated
to make way for its impending renovation. All of the
families accepted the Kurdish government’s
compensation offer of a 250-square-metre plot of
land and 4,000 US dollars. At the time, residents
say, they had little choice.
"They were tenants in the citadel,” explained Nawzad
Hadi, governor of Erbil province. “The government
gave them land and money for free. Public services
have been provided for the new neighbourhood, like
water, electricity, and schools. In future, a health
centre will be built.”
Today, many of the residents of the suburb now known
as Qalai Nwe, or New Citadel, bemoan the distance it
takes to travel to town, the absence of a hospital
and the lack of public transportation. Some say the
neighbourhood lacks the sense of community they
shared as squatters in the close-knit quarters of
Erbil’s ancient fortress.
“We feel like strangers here,” said Aziz Ahmed Tahd,
a 35-year-old shopkeeper.
On a recent visit to Qalai Nwe, children played in
the streets in front of half-finished cinderblock
homes. Others kicked a ball around a gravel lot as a
street vendor pushed his cart.
“If you do not have a car here you might get sick
and die before you can see a doctor,” said Amina
Ahmed Ramazan, a 68-year-old grandmother who suffers
from heart problems and diabetes. She depends on her
son to bring her groceries and medicine each day
from Erbil.
“It is like a cemetery here,” Ramazan said.
Several former residents interviewed by IWPR agreed
that life was better back in the citadel. They said
they didn’t mind the lack of basic utilities there -
and all expressed heartfelt memories of their former
home.
“Life in the citadel was wonderful and beautiful. It
was high above the city and close to the bazaar.
Life here is not like it was in the citadel. It is
not nice and it is far away from the city,” said
18-year-old Nazifa Jafar. “All the memories I have
[of the citadel] are nice and good,www.ekurd.netbut
from the moment they moved us away the happiness
went away.”
According to Jafar, there was nothing coordinated
about the move.
“People didn’t move away, they were moved away
forcefully. They used loudspeakers at the mosques to
tell us to move. People didn’t go all at once, they
went slowly, one by one, until they were all gone,”
she said.
Hadi denies that the former citadel residents were
pushed out by the authorities, “People would say
such things. It was not the way the citadel
residents say. People are used to complaining. The
residents themselves moved away. They were not moved
away forcibly.”
The Erbil authorities insist the relocation was
necessary. The citadel, the say, was structurally
unsound - putting many in danger - and also lacked
adequate water, power and sewage facilities.
Ramazan, sitting outside her home in Qalai Nwe,
defends the city’s decision.
“When some houses on the outer wall collapsed, the
government was worried that people might die, so
they gave us some land and money to build houses
on,” she said.
Even so, it was a tough situation, said Mohamed
Djelid, country director for the United Nations
cultural agency UNESCO, the world body behind the
Kurdish government’s campaign to renovate the
citadel.
“The citadel is one of the oldest inhabited cities
in the world. We need to protect it now because it
was not done in the past. It was a really in a bad
situation for the people living there – no water or
electricity,” he said. “What the government did
several years ago was put out all the inhabitants
from the city. It was not as easy decision, but for
us it was the right decision.”
Some former squatters are not sentimental about
their former home. Taha Ahmed, 54, says the only
good thing about the citadel was that it was close
to Erbil’s bustling bazaar. He says he doesn’t miss
the mice, snakes or the makeshift houses made of
mud. Nonetheless, he feels the compensation offered
by the authorities was inadequate.
“I haven’t been able to put down tiles or put stucco
on the walls,” he said, gesturing towards a block of
unfinished homes. “That is why so many houses look
like this.”
Hadi insists, however, that the financial provision
was adequate, “Why have some people in the
neighborhood been able to finish their houses and
some have not? The compensation was fair. It was
more than enough.”
Tahd, the shopkeeper, says that lately problems with
the water supply and the lack of a nearby hospital
have angered some local residents.
“The neighbourhood needs another well. Thank god, we
have roads, schools and two mosques,” he said. “We
have also been promised an emergency room and a
birthing centre – but we are still waiting.”
For the former citadel residents, news that their
former home is set to become a tourist attraction
filled with coffee and curio shops was met with
shades of apathy and disbelief. Ahmed,www.ekurd.netwho
admitted he wept openly upon learning that he would
be moved from the fortress, said the new plan meant
little to him.
“That doesn’t benefit me one bit,” he said bitterly.
“Those shops will be no help at all.”
Hogar Hasan is an IWPR Iraq local editor. IWPR-trained
reporter Najeeba Mohammed contributed to this story.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, iwpr
net
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