Refugees in Their Own Land: 2m Iraqis Forced to Flee Their Homes
Nearly two million Iraqis have become refugees in their own land in the past year, redrawing the ethnic and sectarian map of Baghdad and other cities, a report by the Iraqi Red Crescent said yesterday.
In Baghdad alone, nearly a million people have fled their homes.
Last month saw the sharpest rise so far in the numbers of Iraqis forced to abandon their homes - 71.1%.
The forced migration raises questions about claims from the Bush administration that the civilian protection plan at the core of its war strategy is making Iraq safer for Iraqis.
Instead, data compiled by Red Crescent staff and volunteers in Iraq’s 18 provinces suggests many Iraqis have failed to find real safety or sustainable living conditions after being forced to leave their homes. Some families have been uprooted twice or even three times in search of safety, affordable housing, functioning water and electricity, adequate schools, and jobs.
More than three-quarters of the displaced were women, and children under 12, reducing families to poverty, and compounding the sense of social dislocation.
“The men who were the breadwinners are no longer part of the family. They either fled or joined armed groups,” the report said.
The vast internal exile began after the bombing of Shia shrines at Samara in February 2006 ignited Iraq’s sectarian war.
Thousands of Shias fled Sunni majority neighbourhoods and headed for the south, where they are in the majority. Sunnis fled Shia enclaves for the north and west of the country. Christians also left their homes in Sunni areas for Kurdistan. Some two million Iraqis left the country.
Now a further wave of migration is under way as Iraqis discover they can not survive in their original havens. Unlike the earlier flights, the current movements are not easily categorised by ethnicity. “Our understanding is that people are just moving to where they feel safer,” said Tim Irwin, a spokesman for the United Nations high commissioner for refugees in Washington.
Although Baghdad is divided largely on ethnic lines by the Tigris, with Sunnis on the west bank and Shias on the east, some Iraqis are seeking safety in mixed and more secular neighbourhoods which have a better level of services.
“It was fair to say at the beginning of that movement that it was ethnically based and religious based,” Mr Irwin said. “People were moving to areas where their ethnicity was in the majority. But with these secondary movements, these third movements, people are continuing to look for safety and security and that may be in homogeneous areas, or it may be in more mixed areas.”
The data from the Iraqi Red Crescent suggests that violence followed many families to their new neighbourhoods, forcing a second flight. In other cases families were forced to move on from shelters in schools or government buildings because they were being shelled.
Some families were made to feel unwelcome in their place of refugee. The local authorities in Najaf and Kerbala, for example, have refused to take in migrants who were not born there. Others moved on because they were becoming a burden to relations who had taken them in.
Still others left because there were no schools for their children. “Schools witnessed a significant increase in the number of students in each classroom. Many schools are operating two shifts to accommodate the growing number of students,” the report said.
The constant movement and a lack of amenities have taken a heavy toll on the fabric of Iraqi society, the report warned.
“Some teenagers who lost loved ones joined the armed groups and started taking revenge on innocent people from different ethnic groups. Rape, armed gangs, theft, drug addiction was commonplace,” it said. “The overall picture is that of a human tragedy unprecedented in Iraq’s history.”
© 2007 The Guardian
What is the problem? Get em all out of Baghdad, the fighting will stop and our troop levels in Iraq can be reduced by a brigade or two. The people who write articles like this just don’t get it.
The Guardian needs confirmation of what’s happening other than the “Red Crescent.” I am not saying their wrong, but this story needs much wider exposure, so it needs all credibility it can muster. Maybe the Red Cross or UN could confirm large numbers of Iraqis being displaced.
I think is it important to catch Bush once again in a Big Lie. Too many people in the American sheeple herd have forgotten that Bush and Cheney were the sociopathic liars that got us to invade Iraq to begin with in 2003. In short, they lied to get us there and now they are lying to keep us there until King Sociopath leaves office so he can save face and dump the mess and invariably the order to withdraw onto the next president.
KEM PATRICK It is rare that I respond to remarks like yours. I hope that you have an IQ beyond two digits.Get YOUR troops out of the Middle East and stop YOUR theft and murder of innocents who rightfully have a diferent culture to YOUR nation which appears to have NO culture whatsoever among your ruling elite. The men of the long gun still live. Get real man and smell the coffee.
You probably haven’t read any of his posts before. He was being sarcastic.
I don’t recall millions of people fleeing when Saddam was in control. I don’t recall reading about insurgency, car bombings, or mounting civilian deaths in Iraq under Saddam’s leadership either.
Is the country better off now? Maybe we should ask the millions of people fleeing the burning cities if they feel liberated….
It’s (56) Hedge, which I suspect is higher than our presidents’.
Sometmes I attempt to be as funny as Caunuck, but I never make it. I am sorry for the upset.
KEM PATRICK September 20th, 2007 2:52 pm
You don’t need to apologize, sometimes people don’t know your personal history and front line experience of what it is like to smell dead bodies blown to bits… It’s easy for others with absolutely no experience like Bu$h to say glibly “bring it on” and not know the consequences.
SO I AGREE…
” Get em all out of Baghdad, NOW!!!!!! the fighting will stop and our troop levels in Iraq can be reduced by a brigade or two. The people who write articles like this just don’t get it.”
PS My IQ was 55 as if thats got anything to do with it
I love this thread!
Its painful to know your nation has created a tragedy that has resulted in the deaths of possibly a million people.
I’m up in Canada and I am hearing people make negative comments about the US. If thats Canada what is being said in other nations. (And the Canadian dollar is at parity now and may be soon worth more than the US dollar)
Bush looks tired on tv..his eyes look red. Is he finally beginning to understand what he has done?
I’d like to drive the people out of Washington and start with a new bunch there. That might help the situation in Iraq and Baghdad better than anything that can be done in Baghdad.
New leadership for the US. We have brilliant people who have accurately predicted these catastrophes. They should gain power and the incompetent people should be out of power!
…………………………………
“Although it’s still true that in D.C. you’re not considered sound and serious about national security unless you were wrong about Iraq.”
Paul Krugman
NYT columnist and economist
SIMONHHH, You are as goofy as me. BTW, 55 is better than 54 but not as good as 56. __ I win.
I’ve previously posted this on two other strings, but will be so bold as to post it once more here.
In Sept 2002, George Tenent, the Director of the CIA, briefed President Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld in the Oval office, from a top secret, comprehensive report and informed them that Saddam did NOT have ANY weapons of mass destruction. ___ NONE!
In anger, Bush told Tenent to trash that repoprt and not mention it again. Tenent obeyed. A month later, Colin Powell and Congress were briefed on the National Intelligence Estimate, the information Tenent had briefed Bush on was not in that report. Instead, the NIE report stated, that Saddam DID have WMDs.
Shortly after that, Congress voted to approve Bush’s request to invade Iraq ___ IF, IF, ALL other options were exhausted.___ A short time later, Bush forced the weapons inspectors out of Iraq and we went to war, ___ because Saddam had WMDs. Two years later, the truth was leaked out by the two CIA advisors who were present for the initial presidential breifing, and our press quickly buried the story. Of course, impeachment was also off of the table. So here we are, and it will get “better” as the days pass.
Just a few more months. We’ll take a look at it then. Just wait a little longer… and a little longer… and a little longer….
Let’s look at the up side: Two million homeless Iraqis in need of housing — definitely an Iraqi demand. Halliburton, Brown & Root, Bechtel — good old American Know-how on the supply side. The ever-ready financing partner — the US taxpayers, who fortunately do not include Halliburton, Brown & Root, Bechtel (and therefore there is no downside for anyone who counts). Set up some more “walled communities” (other than those in bad neighborhoods like Bagdad and Fallujah), way out in quiet desert locations like the ones our Decider likes to visit when the Spirit moves him. Maybe a Robert Trent Jones golf course to locate the new houses and mosques around, a Muslim school staffed by one of our Generals (General Stone reportedly speaks Arabic, reads the Koran, likes to teach “non-hard-core” Iraqi kids, so he’d be a model for the religious instruction program) — well, you get the picture. You just take two million Iraqi lemons, squeeze hard, and voila: Greater Middle East lemonade!
In Iraq everyone knows someone who’s been killed or crippled as a result of the invasion/occupation. What a horrible situation. The USA (and Israel) need to be heavily sanctioned by all other developed countries, and forced to destroy all their WMDs.
They are the two most dangerous nations on the globe. Together they are standing in the way of world peace. They always cloak their dark deeds in fair words. The world can’t wait much longer.
Kem Patrick should know sarcasm is the natural reaction of a second-rate mind. This war is too hideous for sarcasm. Say what you mean or forget it.
The Iraqi people didn’t deserve this, especially after the reign of Saddam. Now we have added insult to injury.
All those women and children in desperate need of stability and security, and Congress is wasting time about Moveon.org ads. What is wrong with this picture?
Why do the citizens of the us need a pied piper to drive out the rats in Washington? Hey Senate!!!! IT’S TIME TO I.M.P E.A.C.H. NOWWWWWWWWWWW!
If we weren’t there illegally sarcasm or satire, would not be necesary. I’m sure Mark Twain, Will Rogers, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Theadore Rosevlelt, Henry David Thoreau, Chanuckchuck, etc, would all love to read your rather puritanical and childish opinon DDEL413. Take a break and smell some flowers.
“Satire has always shone among the rest, and is the boldest way, if not the best, to tell men freely of their foulest faults. To laugh at the vain deeds and vainer thoughts.
~~Dryden~~ Essay upon satire.
“sarcasm is the natural reaction of a second-rate mind.”
huh? What in the hell does that mean? Give it rest, ddell, you’re venting on people who commonly agree on this war’s hideousness. Besides, that comment makes no sense at all.
denny, pick up a grade school civics book. Impeachment proceedings begin in the HOUSE Judiciary Commitee. If the committee recommends a vote on the full House floor, and Articles are passed there, then the Senate decides whether they will convene a trial of the official impeached. The consequences of a guilty verdict are removal from office. This is why, btw, Clinton was impeached, but not removed from office. The Senate decided not to even convene the trial.
This is also why it is of VITAL importance for everyone to contact their House rep and encourage him/her to cosign HR 333, Articles to Impeach Dick(head)Cheney. Do this weekly, at least. Then contact the office of John Conyers, who is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and demand that he begin Impeachment proceedings.
Here’s a little more.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6819
What will it take?
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/unsanam2
A million murdered people, two million displaced people.
How is the USA ever to live this down?
When?
Do they truly believe there is no tomorrow?
KEM PATRICK___ I`m betting it is much closer to 156 and on the high side of that. You are running CANNUCK a good race.
I cannot believe the evil we have done in Iraq. I am an old lady of 77 yeaars and have never seen such dreadfulness perpetrated by the USA It is purely sickening
Anne Nicolas Kirby
Do you have ESP Kernel? The problem is I’m poorly educated. However, guess we have seen plenty of over educated idiots in charge of our lives and futures haven’t we. Let’s see, just off of the top, there was McNamarra, Rove, Rummy, Cheney,…..well, plenty of them.
Have any read SIMONHHH’s blogs on the string Private Security In Iraq, Who Rules? Scary stuff.
Therefore, we can surmise that U.S. instilled democracy is doing wonders for Irak’s moving business. They ought to be very grateful.
It always makes my day, when I see that I’m not the only one who failed speling.
(correction) “ounce of compassion”
Pac says:
You guys all spell great compared to me (I’m a product of the Reagan CA education cutbacks. No chalkboards, english classes held on a dark drama stage with no lighting.)
I find KEM PATRICK’s dry wit very refreshing in the eye of this hurricane of bad news. Ben Franklin “The First American” by H.W. Brands, historian claims the founding father was largely self-educated. He was, as somebody above inferred: a master of dry wit and our first and most prominent (sp?) statesman. During the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia here’s what William Piece of Georgia said about him:
“Dr. Franklin is well known to be the greatest philosopher of the present age, all the operations of nature he seems to understand, the very heavens obey him, and the clouds yield up their lightening to be imprisoned in his rod.
But what claim he has to be a politician, posterity must determine. It is certain that he does not shine much in public council. He is no speaker, nor does he seem to let politics engage his attention.
He is, however, a most extraordinary man, and tells a story in a style more engaging then anything I ever heard. Let his biographer finish his character. He is 82 years old, and possesses and activity of mind equal to a youth of 25 years of age.”
Franklin stressed the dangers of vesting too much power in one man….. He advocated a multi-member council for the executive branch instead of a chief executive. He was overruled by the younger men in the chamber.
Alas, if we had only listened to our elder statesmen…..
You put two lls in spell PAC. you are rite, you can’t spel good either.