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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
IRAQ: Internally displaced people start returning home
BAGHDAD, 12 Sep 2006 (IRIN) - Samiha Wissam, 11, could not hide her happiness when she returned to her home in the Kadhmiyah area of Baghdad after sectarian violence displaced her family for nearly four months.
“I missed my room, my dollies and my garden. I cried every day, dreaming of the day that I was going to hold them again and sing nice songs to my Barbie,” said Samiha. “We suffered a lot living in a tent that they [a local NGO] fixed for us but now I’m going to sleep in my bed covered with a bedspread of pink roses and funny Barbie drawings.”
While away, the Wissam family lived in a tent in the grounds of an abandoned school on the outskirts of the capital, Baghdad.
As sunnis, Samiha and her family were forced to flee their predominantly shi’ite neighbourhood because of an escalation of sectarian killings throughout the country. This was triggered by the bombing of a revered shi’ite shrine in the northern city of Samarra in February.
According to Iraq’s Ministry of Displacement and Migration, 170,000 people were displaced in the months following the Samarra incident. However, like the Wissam family, the ministry said on Sunday that some 40,000 Iraqis have returned in the past month because security is improving.
Nearly three months have passed since Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki took office and outlined his reconciliation plan to end sectarian violence in the country.
The plan’s main objective is to decrease violence in the country by offering political participation to sectarian militant groups.
“The advantage that the reconciliation plan is offering locals is to make them feel more secure to return to their homes and in the mean time show that security is improving countrywide, and that soon sectarian violence will be a thing of the past,” said Mehdi al-Haydari, spokesperson for the Ministry of Migration and Displacement.
However, analysts believe that the security situation has not really improved.
Violent deaths have diminished marginally over the past couple of months. On Friday, the Iraqi Health Ministry announced that 1,536 people had been killed violently in August in Baghdad alone, compared to around 2,000 in July.
“People are returning to their homes but with the fear that at any time they can be forced to flee again and this shows clearly that this returning is just a fantasy because democracy is still not present and violence continues affecting all of them psychologically,” said Khalid Abdel Aziz, professor at the Political Science College of Baghdad University.
An increased security presence has given many displaced people the confidence to believe that the killings will soon be reduced. Increased patrolling and more checkpoints in sensitive areas are restoring hope to the country’s war-weary citizens.
“We know that security is bad in Iraq but the situation has somehow improved. We could see that when we returned without any trouble to our house in a shi’ite neighbourhood from where we were forced to flee three months ago,” said Sarmad Omar, 46, a sunni who returned to his home in Baghdad three days ago.
However, two Baghdad neighbourhoods demonstrate that the sectarian problem is far from over. No displaced people have returned to the Sadr City district of the capital, a shi’ite stronghold, and to the Baghdad Ijidida area, a Sunni stronghold.
The government remains optimistic that it can stem the tide of violence.
“I’m sure it is a matter of time and soon we are going to see this tragedy and deteriorating condition ending… There were no registered new displacements last month, which proves that soon many other families will return and continue to live with dignity as they always did,” al-Haydari said.
AS/ED
[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 2006
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