Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris
Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris
Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris
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Revue <strong>de</strong> Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro <strong>de</strong> la Prensa-Basin Ôzeti<br />
Sfrc ffeUr jjjcrk ®hncg NOVEMBER 14, 2007<br />
Kurds <strong>and</strong>Arabs Shelter Si<strong>de</strong> by Si<strong>de</strong> in Distrust <strong>and</strong> Misery<br />
By MICHAEL KAMBER<br />
SULAIMANIYA, Iraq, Nov. 7<br />
On a barren, trash-strewn<br />
plain on the outskirts of this city,<br />
two groups one poor <strong>and</strong> Kurd¬<br />
ish, the other displaced <strong>and</strong> Arab<br />
huddle si<strong>de</strong> by si<strong>de</strong> in distrust<br />
<strong>and</strong> suspicion.<br />
They are united only in their<br />
misery, their fear of the. coming<br />
winter <strong>and</strong> their envy of those<br />
thriving nearby in Sulaimaniya,<br />
the largest city in the Iraqi region<br />
of eastern Kurdistan.<br />
The estimated 200 Kurds living<br />
in the tent city here say they find<br />
work one or two days a week as<br />
day laborers. A good day brings<br />
$10. Living in a tent with no run¬<br />
ning water keeps the overhead<br />
down.<br />
They move frequently, they<br />
said, <strong>and</strong> so their children<br />
filthy, thin <strong>and</strong> barefoot cannot<br />
attend school. A few have fled<br />
from the continuing violence in<br />
Kirkuk. Others, local resi<strong>de</strong>nts<br />
said, are Qurag, the Kurdish<br />
word for Gypsy or Romany.<br />
A Kurd, who gave his name<br />
only as Ramazan, gestured at the<br />
tents of the Arabs who had come<br />
here to. escape the killing in<br />
Baghdad <strong>and</strong> Diyala in the south.<br />
"We don't like them we have<br />
not forgotten Halabja <strong>and</strong> Anfal,"<br />
he said, speaking of Saddam Hus¬<br />
sein's mur<strong>de</strong>rous campaigns<br />
against Kurdish civilians.<br />
"They get food <strong>and</strong> supplies for<br />
free from the government," an¬<br />
other man said. "A tanker comes<br />
to give water to Arabs. We have<br />
to pay."<br />
Other Kurds at the camp are<br />
more charitable, pointing out that<br />
the Arabs taught them to write<br />
their names in Arabic over time.<br />
Many of the children living in the tent city dirty <strong>and</strong> thin<br />
cannot attend school because they move frequently.<br />
A Sunni Arab great-gr<strong>and</strong>mother, who thinks she is about 100,<br />
lives with her family here after being driven out of Baghdad.<br />
A mother holds her child in front of the tent that is their home for now. The child was born<br />
in the camp, outsi<strong>de</strong> of Sulaimaniya.<br />
ONLINE: OUTSIDE SULAIMANIYA<br />
w More photographs ofArabs<br />
^\ <strong>and</strong> Kurds, displacedfrom<br />
other parts of Iraq, living si<strong>de</strong> by<br />
. si<strong>de</strong> in a tent city outsi<strong>de</strong><br />
Kurdistan's largest city:<br />
nytimes.com/world<br />
That gained them free rations<br />
too, until the government caught<br />
on <strong>and</strong> cut them off with a severe<br />
reprim<strong>and</strong>.<br />
A hundred yards down the line<br />
\ of ragged tents, the Arabs are<br />
'* grouped together.<br />
Degrees of squalor are difficult<br />
to gauge, but they appear to be as<br />
; poor as the Kurds. Some of their<br />
, nally<br />
tents <strong>and</strong> blankets are marked<br />
U.N.H.C.R., after the initials of<br />
the United Nations refugee or¬<br />
ganization. Registered as inter-<br />
displaced persons, they are<br />
entitled to meager rations, some<br />
bedding <strong>and</strong> a monthly allow¬<br />
ance, they said.<br />
Hamza Muzahem, a communi¬<br />
ty lea<strong>de</strong>r who arrived two<br />
months ago from the notoriously<br />
violent Baghdad neighborhood of<br />
Saydia, said he left his home after<br />
a letter with a bullet was slipped<br />
un<strong>de</strong>r his door. Mr. Muzahem<br />
nee<strong>de</strong>d no further warning; he<br />
had seen numerous Sunni neigh¬<br />
bors slain by Shiite militias.<br />
His story is perhaps the least<br />
dramatic here. A well-dressed<br />
woman, stepping carefully<br />
through the dust in high heels,<br />
casually told a visitor of how her<br />
husb<strong>and</strong>, a translator for the<br />
American military, was killed af¬<br />
ter neighbors discovered his line<br />
of work.<br />
A 4-year-old boy, Ali Al Jamoori<br />
Mohamed, lay on a tent floor to<br />
re-enact the killing of his mother<br />
<strong>and</strong> father in their home. He is.<br />
being raised here by relatives.<br />
A hollow-eyed 17-year-old,.<br />
Khaled Mohamed Al Timini, re¬<br />
called how his parents <strong>and</strong> two<br />
brothers were taken from their<br />
car <strong>and</strong> executed on the streets of<br />
Dora, another violent Baghdad<br />
neighborhood.<br />
That same day, he said, he left<br />
his house <strong>and</strong> all his belongings<br />
behind <strong>and</strong> ma<strong>de</strong> his way to this<br />
camp. He said he could not con¬<br />
centrate, had stopped attending<br />
school <strong>and</strong> had found no work<br />
here.<br />
Still, he is thankful. "It is safe<br />
here," he said simply.<br />
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