UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...

of the latest security crack-down in Baghdad, the government has promulgated that those
who had occupied the homes of displaced families would be given 15 days to return the
properties to their original owners or prove they had permission to be there. This approach
is meant to open the way to return. 201
b) Shi’ite-Sunni Mixed Families
The ongoing sectarian violence has also affected mixed Shi’ite-Sunni couples and their
children, resulting in discrimination, pressure to divorce and, in individual cases, even
killings at the hands of insurgents, militias or their own families. Before the fall of the
former regime and escalating violence among the various communities in Iraq, mixed
marriages between Sunnis and Shi’ites and also between Sunni Kurds and Arabs of both
sects were common. According to Government estimates, two million of Iraq’s 6.5 million
marriages are between Arab Sunnis and Arab Shi’ites. An Iraqi organization called Union
for Peace in Iraq (UPI) that aimed to protect mixed marriages from sectarian violence was
forced to stop its activities after three mixed couples, including founding members of UPI,
were killed. With many areas, in particular in Baghdad, being “cleansed” along sectarian
lines and becoming virtual “no-go” zones for members of the other sect, mixed couples and
their children are in a particular difficult situation with no majority area to seek refuge. 202
c) Shabak
According to the Encyclopaedia of the Orient, the Shabak are both
“a people and a religion. The Shabaks live in the region of Mosul, Iraq, and are united in
culture and language, but they cover more than one ethnic group and among them there is
more than one religion.” 203
The Encyclopaedia further explains that a large part of the Shabak is ethnically related to
the Kurds and the Turkmen and subgroups of the Shabak include the Gergari, Bajalan,
Hariri and Mosul. 204 Though some identify the Shabak as Kurds, 205 they have their own
201
IRIN, Iraq: New security plan could make more homeless, 15 February 2007,
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70208; Senanayake, Iraq: Growing Numbers Flee Sectarian
Violence, see above footnote 196.
202
IRIN, Iraq: Sectarian violence forces mixed couples to divorce, 8 November 2006,
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=61927; Amit R. Paley, Even Dating Is Perilous In Polarized
Baghdad, The Washington Post, 12 September 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2006/09/11/AR2006091101044_pf.html;
IRIN, Iraq: Mixed marriages confront sectarian
violence, 6 April 2006, http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=61927; Babak Dehghanpisheh, Rod
Nordland and Michael Hastings, Love in a Time of Madness, Newsweek, 13 March 2006,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11677916/site/newsweek/; Sabrina Tavernise, In Iraq, a sectarian identity
crisis, The New York Times, 19 February 2006, http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/19/news/sect.php;
Aqueel Hussein and Colin Freeman, Iraqi mixed marriages dwindle as terror blitz divorces Sunni from Shia,
The Telegraph, 17 September 2005, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/09/18/
nirq118.xml.
203
Encyclopaedia of the Orient, Shabak, http://lexicorient.com/e.o/shabak.htm [accessed January 2007].
204
Ibid.
205
In particular the Kurdish parties view the Shabak as Kurds, thereby increasing their political leverage in
the Ninewa Plain in view of the forthcoming referendum on the status of “disputed areas”. UNHCR received
information that the main representatives of Shabak tribes held meetings with the Kurdish authorities with the
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