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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
IRAQ: Displaced people in Baghdad march on CPA offices
BAGHDAD , 19 March 2004 (IRIN) - It looks like a peace rally or a spring celebration: green flags fluttering in the breeze, children running around, and posters calling for housing for all.
But talk to some of the 500 people who gathered on Wednesday in front of gates leading to US administrator Paul Bremer’s office, and their protest is quite desperate. They say Iraqi police and US-led troops have told them to leave the abandoned government buildings around the city where they have been living for almost a year.
“The police came and told us we have to leave within one week,” Hamdia Zhiarah, 53, clutching a baby to her breast underneath the traditional full-length abaya covering, told IRIN. “Where will we go?”
Like many others living in government buildings, Zhiarah and her family say they were forced out of their home in Sadr City, a suburb of the capital, when their landlord raised the rent. When they went looking for new housing, they ended up in a former intelligence police building, she said.
Most Palestinian families in Baghdad were also forced out of a complex where rents were kept artificially low under the former regime.
“There must be a place for us,” said Salam Obeyet Kassem, 44. “Now, I want to return back to my apartment and pay rent. Are we going to be like the Palestinians here?”
A Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) spokesman says there is no coalition policy requiring internally displaced people in Iraq to leave government buildings.
Illegal squatters in government buildings are addressed on a “case-by-case” basis, Dan Senor, a spokesman for the US-led CPA, told IRIN.
US troops asked some people to move out of a ministry building for security reasons, said Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, a spokesman for coalition troops. In general, troops leave displaced people living in government buildings alone, however, Kimmitt said.
“We don’t want to continue to live in these places anyway. We believe that the (Iraqi) Governing Council should find a place for us,” said Najim Kalum, 40. “But we don’t trust the Governing Council to help us, so we came to talk to Bremer. All we want is a safe place to educate our children.”
However, with bigger issues to deal with, including the scheduled June 30 handover of sovereignty to Iraqis, the de facto government, the appointed Governing Council, apparently has not had time to address the issue of rapidly rising rents in some parts of the country. Meanwhile UN agencies that most commonly deal with internally displaced people in post-conflict situations are working on Iraqi issues from outside of the country.
Reconstruction experts believe up to 84,000 families may be without houses in Iraq, said Andy Bearpark, CPA director of operations and infrastructure. In an efort to address this Bremer recently signed seven housing contracts worth more than US $100 million to start building new homes for people. The homes will be built mostly in the southern Iraqi towns of Basra, Muthanna, Najaf, Diyala, Karbala, Maysan and Ninawa.
When completed, the new construction is expected to put a permanent roof over the heads of 18,000 people, or more than 3,500 families. Each housing development will also include a mosque, a recreational area, a medical clinic, a shopping mall and schools.
The first construction project will start in Basra in coming days. Thousands of refugees who fled oppression under the former Saddam Hussein regime continue to return from Iran and Saudi Arabia to southern Iraq. Even though many stay with relatives, many towns near the border are bursting with new people. Displaced people in Baghdad also often come from southern Iraq.
"These contracts mean that a future of hope is becoming a future of reality," Bremer said in a statement.
Money from international donors is expected to pay for other needed new housing, Bearpark said.
“We’re doing big housing construction projects, but the needs of housing are enormous,” Bearpark said. “Those needs can’t be met the same way as building a power station.”
However, people still living in temporary accommodations and shelters don't want to wait. They say if nothing is done soon, they'll create even more political problems. Housing projects just signed by Bremer could take as long as three years to complete.
“This is the beginning of our rights,” Kalum said. “If they don’t respond to us, we’ll make a bigger demonstration, and things could be worse for them.”
Theme(s): (IRIN) Refugees/IDPs
[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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