Millions
Trapped In Their Own Country
By Ahmed Ali
06 November, 2007
Inter Press Service
BAQUBA, Nov 5 (IPS)
- At least five million Iraqis have fled their homes due to
the violence under the U.S.-led occupation, but half of them are unable
to leave the country, according to well-informed estimates.
According to the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are more than 4.4 million
displaced Iraqis, an estimate that many workers among refugees find
conservative.
The UNHCR announced last
week that at present 2,000 Iraqis are fleeing their homes every day.
Most of them have received direct threats from death squads or militias.
The provinces that have suffered
the greatest displacement are the largely Sunni Baghdad, Diyala, al-Anbar
and Salahadeen in central Iraq.
Members of many families
who have not fled told IPS they have stayed on because they had no choice.
"We could not leave
our city despite the security situation because we don't have the money
to travel and live outside Iraq," Ali Muhsin, an official with
the directorate general of education and a father of five told IPS in
Baquba, 40 km northeast of Baghdad.
"For more than a year,
we used to receive the salary only every 50 or 60 days because the militants
had taken over the entire city. They even controlled the banks, which
prevented our offices from receiving the money."
Muhsin said most workers
in the education system in Diyala province (north of Baghdad where Baquba
is located) are not fully employed, and are therefore not paid salaries.
And the rampant violence has prevented people going to work.
"People can hardly afford
to live in Iraq, so how could they afford the expense of travelling
and living abroad," Najmeldeen Alwan, a local grocer near Baquba
told IPS. His wife Suhir, standing by his side, said, "We just
wait for our destiny."
Local Iraqis say most people
who fled had the means, or the ability to acquire the means.
"Seventy percent of
those who fled are rich, and the rest had various resources," Abaid
Nasir, an unemployed trader in Baquba told IPS. "Some sold their
properties, others used up their savings to save the lives of their
family."
But it is not money alone
that decides whether a family stays or goes.
"My family live in a
small village which has managed to defend itself from criminals and
gangs," Ta'ama Aed told IPS. "Our people protect it against
the militants. The only thing the militants can do is bomb it with mortars."
Aed lives in a small village
on the outskirts of Baquba. But the need for safety meant that "inhabitants
do not leave the village," he said.
Other families have made
deals with militias and resistance groups for their protection.
"A large number of people
have sided with the militants for their safety," local resident
Mohammed Jabur told IPS. "In such cases, one of the militants guarantees
the family that nobody will hurt them, and they usually keep their word."
There are no formal, government
sponsored refugee camps in Iraq. Makeshift camps are common throughout
the country, but they are fluid, and security in them is poor.
One reason keeping many Iraqis
back now is the lack of security on highways. Most people IPS interviewed
said they avoided travelling more than two or three kilometres from
their villages, towns, or cities.
"I wanted to leave Iraq,
but I could not because the militants control the highways and all the
roads from the city," Ahmed Salih from Baquba city told IPS. "All
the way to the borders, militias and fighters control the roads."
On Oct. 1 Syria decided to
close its borders to Iraqis, except for traders and academics. The move
has left thousands of family members separated from one another.
Roughly 10 percent of Syria's
population is now Iraqis, and the government has said it cannot absorb
more refugees.
The U.S. itself is least
affected by the refugee crisis. Since the invasion of Iraq in March
2003, the U.S. administration has issued less than 2,000 visas to Iraqis.
"Since October 2006
the U.S. government has gone from denying that large numbers of vulnerable
Iraqi refugees even existed, to speaking openly of an Iraqi refugee
crisis," the group Refugees International said in a statement.
"But its actual financial commitments are commensurate neither
with the need nor with the U.S. role in creating the displacement crisis
in the first place. The President and his war cabinet have yet to recognise
the human toll the violence has been taking on Iraqi civilians and neighbouring
countries."
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