AFP

Up to 1.3 Million Iraqis Still Displaced from War

Iraq's brutal sectarian war has died down from its peak in 2006 and 2007, but the UN says some 1.3 million Iraqis remain internally displaced persons (IDPs) -- Iraqis living in their country, but driven from their homes. According to the UN , some 500,000 of them live in "sub-standard" conditions.

Published: about 1 year ago
Categories: World, Middle East & North Africa, Middle East
Topics: Middle East & North Africa
Places: Iraq, Baghdad
Tags: refugees, unhcr, un refugee agency, internally displaced people, idp, iraq war, sectarian, displaced
Transcript: SCRIPT Sabria Hamad is one of the 3,000 internally-displaced Iraqis living in this slum in north Baghdad. She and her family fled their home in the Abu Ghraib area after being threatened by gunmen for being Shiite. She now lives in a makeshift home with her husband, handicapped son and 14 grandchildren. Conditions may be miserable, but many displaced Iraqis are afraid of going back to their homes. SOUNDBITE 1 Sabria Hadi (woman), Housewife (Arabic, 18 sec): "We can't go back. The wound we've suffered has created hate within us. Our house was taken by a family there so how can we go back? We can't. Some people went back and they were killed." According to the UN, Sabria's family are only a fraction of a total 1.3 million people driven from their homes since the peak of sectarian violence that followed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Mukhayamat shanty town is one of the poorest in the area. So far the UN has been providing some assistance such as water tanks and filters. SOUNDBITE 2 Mazin al-Nkshbandi (man), UNHCR senior field assistant (English, 10 sec): "It was in the past a warehouse, there is no sewage network, there is no water network, it's not designed for living." Talib al-Ajami's family lost their possessions when they escaped from their small village in 2006 after his brother was killed in a sectarian attack. He later heard that their former home was blown up. Left with nothing, they are looking to the government for help. SOUNDBITE 3 Talib al-Ajami (man) Day labourer (Arabic, 10 sec): "We're calling for our rights, for some kind of solution -- for compensation now that we've lost our homes. That's all we want from the state. We want a home to live in peacefully." As the settlements are illegal, local authorities don't even provide services such as garbage pickup, so a solution may be a long time coming. And all the families here can do is wait. SHOTLIST MUKHAYAMAT SETTLEMENT, CHIKOUK AREA, KADHIMIYIA NEIGHBOURHOOD, NORTH BAGHDAD, MARCH 1, 2012, SOURCE: AFPTV - VAR of Sabria Hamad in her home with her family - MS of Sabria Hamad walking outside her home - SOUNDBITE 1 - WS of homes - CU of chickens - WS of people standing near a pool of sewage water - CU of sewage - VAR of UNHCR satellite - SOUNDBITE 2 - VAR of Talib al-Ajami - VAR of man and boy standing outside a home - SOUNDBITE 3 - VAR of children /// ---------------------------------------- AFP text story: Iraq-unrest-displaced-UN,FEATURE Displaced Iraqis still suffering from sectarian war by W.G. Dunlop =(PICTURE+VIDEO)= BAGHDAD, March 20, 2012 (AFP) - Talib al-Ajami stands near his makeshift house in a garbage and sewage-filled slum in north Baghdad holding a torn, creased letter from insurgents who drove him from his home in 2006. "In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful," the letter begins, but the only mercy in what follows is that Talib received a "final warning" instead of being killed outright. "We know about you and your mean, sectarian activities, and it is time for every soul that holds destruction and hatred for this country to die," it says. "You should know that you are a target for us wherever you go. This published statement is for the traitors who live in Khamis al-Tajah," a small village near Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad. The letter, which is signed the "Advisory Council of the Mujahedeen," was the second Talib had received in 2006. One of his brothers was murdered without warning, and Talib decided to leave. He now lives in a shanty town called Mukhayamat. Iraq's brutal sectarian war has died down from its peak in 2006 and 2007, but the UN says some 1.3 million Iraqis remain internally displaced persons (IDPs) -- Iraqis living in their country, but driven from their homes. According to UN envoy Martin Kobler, some 500,000 of them live in "sub-standard" conditions. Claire Bourgeois, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) representative for Iraq, told AFP that fear and lack of a place to return to are among the main issues keeping IDPs from going home. Mukhayamat, one of six "settlements" in the Chikouk area of Kadhimiyah neighbourhood in north Baghdad, is a miserable slum of makeshift one-storey houses with woven reeds or sheets of metal for roofs, often topped with plastic to shield against the rain. Spiderwebs of electric wiring strung from wooden poles provide electricity to power a few light bulbs, a fan or tiny television in the houses. The garbage-strewn streets are dirty and rutted, and some have small canals down the middle that carry sewage into expansive pools of foetid water. It is here that Talib lives with one of his two wives and two of his nine children, in two small, sparse rooms in a house of rough concrete blocks with a makeshift metal roof. His other wife and children live elsewhere. The house has a small walled dirt yard and a garden, but is flanked by a garbage dump on one side and a pond of murky, junk-filled water on the other. "The area here is safe but the situation is miserable," said Talib, who is 40 years old and works as a day labourer when he can find jobs. "I am afraid of returning back home." Talib's lot in life was once different, when he and two brothers each owned homes in Khamis al-Tajah. But that changed in 2006, after the bombing of the Shiite Al-Askari shrine in Samarra unleashed a wave of sectarian violence across Iraq. Talib said he received one threatening letter, but ignored it. The second, marked "final warning," followed two weeks later. One of his brothers was kidnapped and murdered in 2006 without receiving a warning, Talib said, and he decided to leave. Talib was later told his house had been blown up. "We lost everything we owned; we left the area without getting anything from home," Talib said. "We demand the government to compensate us for our lost houses and properties." The Mukhayamat settlement, which is home to some 3,000 people, is one of the worst in the Chikouk area, where a total of about 50,000 IDPs reside, UNHCR senior field assistant Mazin al-Nkshbandi told AFP. "There is no sewage network, there is no water or water network," he said. "It's not designed for living." Other settlements in Chikouk face similar problems, he said. UNHCR provides assistance to IDPs including items such as water tanks and filters, doors and windows, and removing garbage and sewage, Nkshbandi said. But local authorities do not provide services such as garbage pickup because the IDP settlements are illegal, so the waste builds back up, he said. While the conditions in Chikouk are awful, leaving has its own risks -- Nkshbandi said that some people who left the area for their homes were killed. Sabria Hamad, 49, also resides in Mukhayamat. "Four times we found threats under our door," but "as we cannot read or write, we shredded them," said Sabria, who used to live in Haswa in the Abu Ghraib area. Gunmen later came to deliver the message that "you Shiites cannot stay here anymore," Sabria said, so she and her family left. "They did not give us the chance to take anything from our house," she said. But that did not spare her family -- one of her sons was electrocuted to death in a butcher shop in Taji, north of Baghdad, in what Sabria suspects was not an accident. Another son was shot dead in the town of Latifiyah south of Baghdad with his uncle, and a daughter was killed in clashes involving American forces in Diyala province. Sabria now lives in a three-room shanty made of concrete blocks with her husband, a handicapped son and 14 grandchildren. The rooms have bare walls and carpets on the floor. When she, her husband and some of the grandchildren ate lunch, they gathered around a large metal plate of rice, sitting on the floor. A partially-collapsed reed fence frames the house's small, dusty, junk-strewn yard. The house is located near the other end of the garbage dump that adjoins Talib's yard. "My life is like hell; I swear by God, I do not have 1,000 dinars," or less than $1, Sabria said. "The government did not help us and did not find a solution for us," she continued. She and her family had lived in Haswa for years, but cannot go back: "Some people went back and they killed them. We do not have place to return and we are afraid." wd-na/psr/jds

Up to 1.3 Million Iraqis Still Displaced from War | NewsLook

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Up to 1.3 Million Iraqis Still Displaced from War

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