#cathy otten

by Cathy Otten with Introduction by Ahmed Ali

Introduction

On March 20th, Erbil-based reporter Cathy Otten and I visited Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Anbar to document their living conditions and situation. Starting in January 2014, Iraqi families from the Fallujah area in eastern Anbar were part of the first wave of forced migration caused by the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, also known as ISIL or ISIS, and the ensuing war between the Iraqi government and ISIS. Today, these Anbari families are among Iraq’s most vulnerable people, largely forgotten by the outside world.

IDPs have been forced to flee to safer areas across Iraq, with a majority heading north to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). In the region’s capital, Erbil, large numbers of IDPs from Fallujah settled in the city of Shaqlawa at the foot of Safin Mountain north of the capital. The presence of 8,000 Anbari families who are mostly from Fallujah in Shaqlawa has earned the city the nickname “Shaqlujah.” Many of these families reside in urban areas where conditions are difficult. During our visit, the IDPs who are predominantly Iraqi Sunni detailed their needs and sentiments. With their ordeal going on for so long, they feel neglected. They talked of needing financial support, employment, education, health care, and food. These needs are crucial but meeting them has proven to be difficult due to the financial challenges the Iraqi government faces and reports of corruption. Right now, it is especially urgent to ensure that these families have what they need to endure Iraq’s long, hot summer, including refrigerators, fans, air conditioners, and access to clean water.

The IDPs from Fallujah feel a sense of betrayal by the Iraqi government, local Anbar officials, and the international community. Speaking to some IDPs also revealed the deep distrust that exists between Iraq’s Shi’a and Sunni communities. Such feelings shed light on the challenges ahead for reconciliation when these families eventually return to their homes. — Ahmed Ali, Washington, D.C.

Life for Anbar’s forgotten, displaced families

SHAQLAWA, IRAQ — Opening his mouth in the damp, windowless room, Ayhem Al Jumaili starts to sing of a home he left over a year ago – when he was not yet four. “I had a dream I returned to Fallujah,” he sings as his small voice fills the room, “but I awoke and was still far away.”

Ayhem memorized the song from fragments of stories and text messages passed around by family and friends who fled Fallujah over a year ago, travelling north to Shaqlawa in Iraqi Kurdistan; after ISIS-led forces took control and fighting broke out between insurgents and government forces.

Now a new wave of families are escaping violent clashes in Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar, as ISIS attempts to take that city too, dashing Ayhem’s dreams of returning home. In April more than 114,000 people fled the Ramadi area towards Baghdad.

Um Mustafa sits listening to her son Ayhem sing in their partly built shelter, which lies under the Safeen Mountain. Her eyes fill with tears. Gaping holes in the walls are covered with sheets of blue tarpaulin; giving the room a dim, aqua glow. Winter is receding but the clouds outside are dark. Later it will pour down – drenching the floors and clothes of families like theirs living in abandoned buildings.

In the center of town ice cream shops and family eateries are closed for Friday prayers and the Kurdish imam’s sermon drifts out over quiet streets. Over eight thousand displaced families, around 40,000 people now live in Shaqlawa according to local aid workers, most of them from Fallujah living in rented homes or unfinished buildings, open to the elements.

ISIS advances have been well documented since Um Mustafa escaped Fallujah, unlike the lives of Sunni Arabs forced from their homes. Civilians who fled shelling, street fighting and barrel bombing are sheltering where they can, but say they were almost entirely forgotten – until ISIS pushed forward through northern Iraq last summer, displacing and terrorizing minority groups that made the international media and aid groups suddenly take notice.

“It has been one year and two months since I have seen my family, my house, my city,” says a displaced man from Fallujah drinking tea on a rainy morning in the deserted center of Shaqlawa. “Unlike 99 percent of the people in the world I love Fallujah, it is my city. I used to take pictures of the river, the sun, the clouds and the mosques.”

He says that for him Fallujah was the city of mosques, but now, “It is a city of ghosts, there is no electricity, no water. ISIS controls everything. There is shelling and bombing everywhere. People there say they can only use small generators for power, some even use wood to cook with.”

“Families became the victims”

Um Mustafa left her home in Garma, east of Fallujah with her husband and her children, Ayhem, Mustafa, Hijiran and Ghfran at the end of January 2014 after insurgent groups moved into Fallujah. Her relative Abu Harib, says that ISIS launched attacks from civilian areas and the army would respond, “Families became the victims,” he says, sitting on the floor by Um Mustafa.

The family travelled north to Samarra in Salahaddin province and then to Kirkuk, living in abandoned buildings along the way while the men searched for work as day laborers, finding little. They came to Erbil and settled in Shaqlawa, which is nestled into misty green hills not far from the Rawanduz gorge.

Um Mustafa and her 26 relatives, including 15 children, share just two bedrooms. They are thankful that the Kurdish owners of the unfinished building are allowing them to stay, but leaks in the roof persist and before the one toilet was moved outside, Um Mustafa says “I would wake up in the morning and want to cry because of the bad smell.”

“We were the happiest people [in Garma] – all we want is safety and peace,” she says about life in the town before the battles began. But they add that they haven’t felt comfortable in Garma since the fall of former dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003 as arbitrary arrests in the aftermath were common. But then, at least “we had our homes.”

Most of the 15 children living here had their schooling broken by war, only attending classes briefly last year in Samarra. Instead to keep busy they write poetry together and think about returning home.

The winter has been hard. The family didn’t have enough fuel to run the oil heater and Um Mustafa’s chest is bad. She coughs, but they are struggling to afford treatment or transport to the hospital. In the summer keeping food cool will be difficult. At the moment the family store dry food in empty plastic bottles to keep rats away.

Aid organizations such as World Vision provide food vouchers for families like Um Mustafa’s, totaling about $26 per family every month, and the International Organization for Migration have given blankets. But much of the support they receive comes from neighbors, mirroring stories of displaced people across Iraq who rely on the support of the local communities who shelter them.

“If I go to the south they will kill me”

Across Shaqlawa we are welcomed into Tin City, a muddy warren of cinder block homes, high up on the rain drenched hill overlooking the town. Outside our feet sink into rich, clay-like mud.

Abu Ahmed, 45, a large man with an air of authority shares his two-roomed home with 14 members of his family . Close to 35 families from Fallujah live in houses covered with pieces of tin and tarpaulin which is how the settlement got its nickname. “During snow storms and rain showers water comes through the roof so we had to put up plastic sheets,” he says, sitting in his living room as the storm clouds gather outside.

Abu Ahmed and his family left Fallujah in February 2014 due to the fear of living under constant shelling. They went north to Samarra in Salahaddin province, but after the fall of Tikrit, he says security deteriorated so they left there too.

The family survives off monthly food coupons and the odd day of construction work, but even that has dried up recently as the Kurdistan region suffers from its own financial crisis. Meeting their monthly rent payment of between $170 and $250 is not easy. “Yesterday is too soon to go back,” says Abu Ahmed, although he doesn’t know if their home is still standing. “Two months ago we heard that ISIS went in to our home and took everything. We don’t know what the conditions the house is in now,” he says.

Anbaris in Shaqlawa live in safety but not at ease, as phone calls and messages flood in from those still living under ISIS. “In Fallujah there was work and my children were students – they didn’t have to go out and work,” says Abu Ahmed, who is thankful to his Kurdish neighbors. “The people of Kurdistan have done their best [to help us], we thank the Kurds a million times.”

He looks over at a small TV screen lighting up the corner of the room with news of battles in central and western Iraq, and then turns and says sadly, “The western world is not barbaric, they believe in the value of human life but we believe they are not doing enough for this crisis.” Many families like his sell their monthly food vouchers at a loss, just to be able to pay the rent on their partly built homes.

Anbaris say they feel abandoned by their provincial leaders and the central government in Baghdad. “If I go to the south they will kill me,” says one displaced man from Fallujah a little later, standing on the street in Tin City and expressing his fear of reprisal attacks as a Sunni Arab for ISIS brutality if he went to the Shiite south of Iraq.

“I had to come here. No one will help us. Not Baghdad and not the Anbar council. Where is the money? Where are our human rights?” he says, reaching the apex of his speech before turning and heading back inside, adding “The most important thing is that safety and security are restored.”

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