Iraq violence displaces thousands

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Iraq violence displaces thousands

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

BBC - Mar 30, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4859758.stm

Iraq unrest displaces thousands

More than 30,000 Iraqis have been displaced as a result of sectarian
violence between the country's two main communities over the past month.

The figures from an Iraqi government ministry are echoed in findings by a
UN-affiliated body, the International Organisation for Migration.

Tension between Iraq's Shia and Sunni communities was increased by the
bombing of a key shrine in February.

Many of these internal refugees are now living in temporary camps.

The bombing of the Shia shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad, five weeks ago
set off a wave of violence between Iraq's two main religious communities.

Abandoning Baghdad

Almost every day victims of the sectarian bloodshed are found in Baghdad,
their bodies dumped around the city.

Since the capital has traditionally been the great melting pot of Iraq's
different communities, the BBC's Middle East analyst Roger Hardy reports,
the exodus from there has been particularly marked.

Sunni families have fled north to the area known as the Sunni Triangle.

Shia have fled south, for example to the holy city of Najaf, where the local
authorities are struggling to look after them.

It is only recently that sectarianism has taken root in Iraq, our analyst
says.

The country has traditionally been nationalistic and rather secular with
intermarriage between Sunni and Shia relatively common.

But now it is hard to see how the sectarian trend can be reversed, our
analyst says.

It is coming from below - from the grass roots - because at a time of
insecurity people now see local militias, often with a sectarian base, as
the only force which can protect them.

And it is coming from above - from the political leaders in Baghdad - who
have discovered they can gain more power and influence from building on
sectarian loyalties than from appeals for national unity, our analyst adds.

Escaping death

Some of those displaced talked about their reasons for fleeing to Reuters
news agency.

Sunni engineer Adnan al-Samarraie took his family from Baghdad to Tikrit
after watching Shia gunmen kill a close friend in a restaurant.

"When I saw them killing Abu Omar, I knew my turn would be next," he said.

A Baghdad man who would only give his first name, Saad, said he had fled to
the Shia city of Najaf after Sunni insurgents killed his two brothers in a
raid.

It had shocked him to learn that some of the attackers were actually his
neighbours:

"I knew them, they were greeting us in daylight and killing us during the
night," he said.

'True figure higher'

Iraq's Ministry for Displacement and Migration estimates that almost 33,000
people have left their homes and the Swiss-based International Organisation
for Migration (IOM) counts about 30,000.

However, the IOM said the true figure could be much higher because most
people have moved in with relatives or friends.

"Iraq is at a very precarious point now and security is continuously
deteriorating," said Dana Graber, an IOM officer in Amman.

"Until security is stabilised people will continue to be displaced due to
sectarian violence."

The Iraqi Red Crescent has told the BBC it is caring for more than 1,000
people in temporary camps.

© BBC MMVI


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