Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris

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