END THE WAR.
PUT THE WAR CRIMINALS ON TRIAL.
BEGIN REAL REHABILITATION IN IRAQ.
LET SOME OF THOSE WHO SERVED IN THE MILITARY FROM THE US AND THE COALITION HELP OUT.
LET OUR CHURCHES AND SOCIAL AGENCIES HELP PROVIDE REAL LOVE AND NURTURANCE TO THESE CHILDREN.
Ticking bomb of Iraq’s forgotten refugee children
Living in squalor and fearful of sectarian attack, the plight of 2.5m homeless people is at the heart of the nation’s illsTicking bomb of Iraq’s forgotten refugee children
Living in squalor and fearful of sectarian attack, the plight of 2.5m homeless people is at the heart of the nation’s ills
THE children in Qawala camp are grubby, bundled up in as many clothes as their parents can find to ward off wintry temperatures in the tents on a rubbish dump in northern Iraq that they now call home. They wrap their feet in plastic bags to walk through the mud to school.
Their plight is the untold story of Iraq — of families who were forced to flee for their lives when sectarian fighting between Sunnis and Shi’ites erupted in 2006 after Al-Qaeda bombed the Golden Mosque, a revered Shi’ite sanctuary in Samarra.
Qawala camp, two miles outside the city of Sulaymaniyah in the north of the country, is home to 3,000 men, women and children, a tiny percentage of up to 2.5m Iraqis believed to be homeless in their own country.
These people rarely feature in news from Iraq that focuses on calibrating the gains or losses of the American military “surge”, or the record of the deadlocked parliament under Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister. Yet it is crucial to the country’s future that they should be able to return home and rebuild their lives, or they will be a ticking bomb that threatens any possibility of a peaceful future for Iraq.
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Their plight is the untold story of Iraq — of families who were forced to flee for their lives when sectarian fighting between Sunnis and Shi’ites erupted in 2006 after Al-Qaeda bombed the Golden Mosque, a revered Shi’ite sanctuary in Samarra.
Qawala camp, two miles outside the city of Sulaymaniyah in the north of the country, is home to 3,000 men, women and children, a tiny percentage of up to 2.5m Iraqis believed to be homeless in their own country.
These people rarely feature in news from Iraq that focuses on calibrating the gains or losses of the American military “surge”, or the record of the deadlocked parliament under Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister. Yet it is crucial to the country’s future that they should be able to return home and rebuild their lives, or they will be a ticking bomb that threatens any possibility of a peaceful future for Iraq.
In Qawala, the refugees are safe from the internecine violence they fled, but it is no place to live. The stench of sewage is overwhelming and dogs scavenge for food. Residents dump their rubbish and old refrigerators there.
Sahira Jasmim, 38, lives in squalor in a tent with her five children. She fled Baghdad after her husband, a taxi driver, died in the wave of killings that engulfed her neighbourhood, Dora, in the south of the capital.
“I’m forced to live like this,” she said. “I feel exhausted inside. When I was living in Baghdad I had electricity, water and a home. Now I have nothing. It’s very cold in here in the winter and I have one gas heater to keep the children warm. It’s on the entire time and kerosene is very expensive. I don’t think about the future — what future?”
Everyone in Qawala longs to go home but is too frightened. Hadi and Khushay Ali, former sheep merchants from the city of Mosul, live near Jasmim in another tent with their six children, and the four orphaned children of Hadi’s brother, who was beheaded by Al-Qaeda. Their 27-year-old mother died of a heart attack when her husband’s head was brought to her.
“I lived in a good house in Mosul and had everything I needed,” said Khushay, wearing a patterned dress and black headscarf. “Two of my husband’s brothers were killed by the militia and we were scared he would be killed next, so we had to leave.
“I cook one meal a day, and we haven’t eaten meat since October last year,” she said, surrounded by barefooted children. “I thought everything would be better after the war but life has gone from bad to worse.”
As the fifth anniversary of the war approaches this Thursday, the government is doing little to help the refugees of Qawala — many of them widows — or those in similar shanty towns across Iraq. The lack of security makes it dangerous for aid organisations to intervene.
Shaista Aziz, who visited Qawala last month for Save the Children UK, is trying to get help for countless widows and their families. “These women are afraid, they are unprotected and they are voiceless. Most have had to flee their homes and their jobs, taking their young children with them. They and their children are prey to extremists, armed criminals and militiamen,” she said. “They want to go home as soon as possible, but ‘as soon as possible’ looks like a distant dream.”
Along with the internally displaced, another 2m Iraqis have fled the country, mostly to Jordan and Syria. They include many of Iraq’s best and brightest. Only about 36,000 have returned, despite the fall in violence in recent months attributed to the troop “surge”.
There are, however, recent moves to piece back together the Rubik’s cube of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities where Shi’ite and Sunni lived side by side.
Shatha al-Musawi, a Shi’ite member of parliament who was forced out of her house in the Baghdad district of Hay al-Adel by a Sunni militia, is leading a group of widows trying to get their homes back.
Supported by Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi politician assigned to help refugees return home, and by the American Major-General Jeffrey Hammond, she has enabled several families to reclaim property, although she is still living in the Shi’ite district of Hurriya herself.
The women returned a few weeks ago with Chalabi, backed by Iraqi soldiers, and sat with the Sunni militia members who had not only taken their homes but in some cases had killed their men. “I met the man who is in my house, and it was very hard,” Musawi said.
“He said he was just taking care of the house for me but I told him I do not need anyone to take care of my house,” she added, uncharacteristically breaking down in tears.
“It was the hardest thing I have had to do in my life. But I have to do this and keep inside my anger because we want a future for Iraq,” she said.
“We have to persuade the people in our houses to leave voluntarily, because there have been cases when someone was forced out of a house by the rightful owner, and that person then came back and burnt it down.”
The struggle comes against a backdrop of violence that has cast a shadow over the success of the surge, which saw an extra 30,000 troops arrive in Iraq by last June. Attacks on civilians and the American and Iraqi armed forces increased by 30% between January and February, although they are well down compared with the same time last year.
A senior US official said last week that attacks had decreased from 180 a day in June to 60 a day in January.
There were worrying signs that Al-Qaeda in Iraq had not been defeated. Ten days ago, two massive bombs hit Karradah, a popular shopping district in the heart of Baghdad, killing 68 people. Last week came the worst attack on US forces in months when a suicide bomber struck a patrol in Baghdad, killing five soldiers.
Nor have sectarian murders ceased. Last week the body of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, leader of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Mosul, was found in a shallow grave. He had been kidnapped on February 29 as he drove home from mass.
However, the formation of the US-financed Awakening Councils has seen Sunni tribes who once fought against American and Iraqi forces take up arms against Al-Qaeda instead. Hammond described Al-Qaeda’s status last week as “frustrated but not defeated”.
Al-Qaeda has regrouped in the northern areas of Diyala and Mosul and is largely responsible for most of the American and Iraqi losses. Baghdad is calmer, but Iraqi intelligence sources said the group had gone underground and was biding its time.
The Awakening forces could themselves turn out to be a problem in future. They still resent the loss of power they suffered when Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated government fell, and now want to be integrated into the official Iraqi military.
The Shi’ite-dominated government is loath to take in 80,000 Sunni tribesmen, fearing they could become a fifth column. Maliki has pledged to put 20% of them on the military payroll and efforts are being made to find jobs for the others to stop them returning to the ranks of a well-financed insurgency.
Crucial to the next few months will be the progress of the Iraqi security forces as the Americans plan to withdraw 25,000 troops by mid-summer, leaving 130,000 in the country.
Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical cleric who leads the Mahdi Army, a Shi’ite militia, has extended a ceasefire and Iraqi politicians hope to bring him back into the fold.
Some of the biggest problems confronting Iraq in the next year will be on the political front. The security gains were intended to provide an opportunity for Shi’ites, Sunnis and Kurds to reach agreements on sharing oil revenues, improving economic performance, ending corruption and launching a process of national reconciliation.
After months of deadlock, Maliki’s government did pass a law relaxing restrictions on former members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party, but there is still no agreement on oil and local elections will be delayed because of arguments about the rules.
The most encouraging sign may be that Iraqis are starting to blame their own government for their woes, rather than American or British forces, and many are talking about votes rather than guns. At a recent meeting in Diwaniyah, a southern city with 80% unemployment, men sat on pillows around the room, discussing their plight. Hussein, a once-successful farmer who cannot get his produce to market because of the high cost of fuel, said: “We voted for this government but they have done nothing they promised. We need to go to new elections and elect people we know who will help us.”
Any progress is cold comfort to the families stuck in Qawala. Saad Setta, 45, a widow living with four sons and three daughters in another freezing tent, has nothing to go back to in Baghdad. A Shi’ite militia posted leaflets through her door in the Saidiya district, forcing her to flee, and she has since learnt that her house was burnt down.
“This war has created a disaster for women like me,” she said as she mashed chickpeas to make falafel, the family’s one meal of the day. “I am alone, left to take care of my children, and there are many more women like me all over Baghdad without husbands. We have a government only in name.”
Like anyone else among the displaced millions, Setta still hopes to make a life for her children outside the makeshift camp. “Iraq is my home, Iraq is my country, and inshallah [God willing] one day I feel that I will have Iraq back,” she said. The resilience of Iraqis may be their best hope for the future.
Video: Angelina Jolie visits troops in Iraq
"Suffer the little children........"
I hope all the great and good who agreed with Blair and Bush remember this quote when reading this article - a good intro for Easter in many ways !!! What would Christ think of all this harm towards Children born out of the mayhem in the Middle East at present ? Think of this Blair when you preach to your flock at Harvard about Christianity !!!!
Ian Payne, WALSALL
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