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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
IRAQ: Focus on reconstruction disparities in north
MAHMOUR DISTRICT, 11 February 2004 (IRIN) - On the road leading south from the northern Iraqi governorate of Arbil the problems of reconstructing war-ravaged Iraqi society are distilled on one stretch of highway.
South of the line, that until this year divided self-governing Iraqi Kurdistan from the regime of Saddam Hussein, this region was badly hit by the Anfal campaign of the 1980s.
More than 4,500 villages in the Kurdish north of the country were destroyed and those living in them forced to leave. But since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government this year, thousands of people have returned to the land they once occupied hoping to rebuild the lives they left 15 or more years ago.
The area near Mahmour town, an hour's drive south of Arbil, is one such village that is slowly being repopulated. On one side of the road you will find a colourful sign pointing to Dugardkan, a village rising from the earth again, 42 new concrete houses being built, power lines running to them, water connected and even a new community hall.
But across the road, less than a kilometre away, lies the village of Sirma. There is no sign, no gravelled road, no power, water or new houses - just a few mud huts constructed by some of the villagers who have returned to try and live on their land again.
The difference between the settlements is vast, graphic and difficult to explain. It shows both the scale of the problem faced in reconstructing villages in northern Iraq but also the difficulty of doing this equitably.
Dugardkan is something of a model of reconstruction. Funded by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Swedish-based NGO Qandil provided the materials for people to build their own houses and most will move in after winter. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) built the community hall and named it after an American soldier who died nearby.
Though predominately Kurdish, there are two Arab families in Dugardkan, showcasing the ability of the two cultures and ethnic groups to live together, following Saddam Hussein's Arabisation plan. It aimed to change the demography of the areas where Iraq's vast oil wealth lies by forcing ethnic groups out to be replaced by Arabs, mainly from the south.
Abdul Aziz Hajaj Yusef is the head of one of those Arab families. He told IRIN in Dugardkan that Saddam Hussein’s forces kicked him out of the village in 1987, along with the Kurds. It was the second time his house had been destroyed after a similar attack in 1963. So he moved in with relatives in a nearby village and stayed there for 16 years.
Now he was anxiously waiting to finish constructing his house so he can finally move back. With much enmity between Kurds and Arabs in the region, he is thankful to his neighbours who have helped him so much. “I don’t make any difference between Arabs and Kurds. We have been living together for a long time. We can live together without any problems in the future.” He is also thankful to Qandil and those who chose Dugardkan to be reconstructed.
“We are very lucky and I think Dugardkan will be better than before. But we still need many things that we don’t have money for. I want a mosque to pray in because I am a Muslim. I have children and they need a school. We get sick so we need a hospital.”
His Kurdish neighbour, Azad Gaffur Ismael, told IRIN that Dugardkan was a prosperous village before it was destroyed. “In 1987 we had everything and we were very rich. We even had electricity then.” For the past 16 years he has lived in a camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) near Arbil, surviving on food handouts. Now he wanted to shift back to his land and grow wheat and other crops.
Across the road in Sirma, Mahmood Khadir Rashid shares that wish. But that is all the two men have in common right now. For Mahmood, home is a pitiful one-room mud shelter he built when he came back to Sirma after the war in April.
Wet patches inside the walls show where the house leaks during rain. Its mud floor offers no insulation from the bitter winter and for this reason seven of his nine children are still living in nearby Mahmour town. There is no power and no kerosene for heaters. “Winter is not at the gate, it is already inside the gate,” Mahmood told IRIN.
Before the village was destroyed in 1987, about 37 families lived in Sirma. Eleven have returned so far and the remainder want to, but have no money to build houses.
They used to be connected to a water supply, but now they drink muddy water from a bad well. The only assistance they have received in the last eight months is two visits from a water tanker. “We haven’t had any help - not a single seed,” Mahmood said, hoping to replant his fields, as he had no job, like many other villagers.
He said when he looked across the road at the reconstruction in Dugardkan it made him crazy because he had been offered nothing. But remains adamant that no matter how tough life is in Sirma, it is better than being in Mahmour. “It’s our land. Here we can grow crops and have animals.”
Ayub Abdullah Majid had some animals - about 60 sheep. But he had to sell 40 of them to build a two-room mud house in Sirma for his extended family of 12. They all sleep in one 4 metre by 2 metre room and cook in the other. Snow sometimes falls around the house and they have no heating other than a stove in the kitchen because fuel is so hard to get. “We live on a sea of oil but we have no kerosene,” he told IRIN.
He too is angry that Dugardkan has received so much especially when its residents did nothing to help themselves. “At least we have tried to build our own homes without help.” Ayub believes Dugardkan got help because its residents support the ruling Kurdish Democratic Party, while Sirma’s villagers have no political ties or supporters in government.
The last time they saw a water tanker was a month ago. His father Haji Abdullah Majid Hussein remembers when life was good in Sirma - so good he had enough money to make the most important Muslim pilgrimage known as the haj to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Now he says they have little except the land they always farmed.
“I feel so happy to be back here because it’s my land. We were always praying to come back here. Even just for one minute I wanted to come back here before I died. But it is very different now and very difficult. We hope that someone will help us as they did for our neighbours.”
Themes: (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Environment, (IRIN) Governance, (IRIN) Human Rights
[ENDS]
This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004
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