UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...
UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...
UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
11,000 in the Governorate of Qadissiyah. 465 The Dom Research Center provides a figure of<br />
50,000. 466<br />
b) Current Situation<br />
After the fall of the former regime, the Kawliyah lost the protection once afforded to them.<br />
Conservative local communities as well as members of the Mehdi Army, who had long<br />
resented their differing social norms, violently forced the Kawliyah from their settlements.<br />
For example, on 12 March 2004, dozens of armed Mehdi Army members attacked the<br />
village of Kawliyah in the Governorate of Qadissiyah with mortars, rocket-propelled<br />
grenades (RPGs) and even bulldozers. Fighting erupted between militia members and<br />
Kawliyah villagers and, according to a MNF legal advisor, more than 20 locals<br />
died. 467 Furthermore, 18 villagers were detained and tortured by Mehdi Army members, but<br />
later freed by the CPA. 468 Other reports say the village was looted and burned. There was<br />
no investigation by the police, who were possibly even involved in the attack. 469<br />
A village in the district of Abu Ghraib was attacked by local residents, who destroyed<br />
houses with bulldozers and killed those that refused to leave. 470 It is said that Saddam<br />
Hussein settled the Kawliyah in this area in 1979 as an act of revenge against the<br />
religiously conservative Zawabei tribe, which traditionally settles in the district of Abu<br />
465 IRIN, Iraq: Minorities living tormented days under sectarian violence, 4 January 2007,<br />
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=62981; ibidem, Iraq: Gypsies call for greater rights, see above<br />
footnote 463.<br />
466 Dom Research Center, Population Chart of Iraq, http://www.domresearchcenter.com/population/<br />
popiraq.html [accessed January 2007].<br />
467 Melinda Liu, Getting Away With Murder?, Newsweek, 27 May 2004, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/<br />
5079129/site/newsweek/.<br />
468 Ibid.<br />
469 Jeffrey White and Ryan Philips, Sadrist revolt provides lessons for counterinsurgency in Iraq, Jane’s<br />
Intelligence Review, August 2004, http://washingtoninstitute.org/html/pdf/white0804.pdf; Anthony Shadid, In<br />
a Gypsy Village’s Fate, An Image of Iraq’s Future, The Washington Post, 3 April 2004,<br />
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46446-2004Apr2. Other incidents were reported as follows:<br />
another village in the Governorate of Qadissiyah, near Diwaniyah, was attacked with mortars on New Year’s<br />
Day 2005, reportedly killing a woman and wounding three others. The primary school and clinic built by the<br />
former regime had been rendered useless and many houses were destroyed in the attack; see Deepa<br />
Babington, Poverty and fear dominate life for Iraq’s Gypsies, Reuters, 6 January 2006,<br />
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/480fa8736b88bbc3c12564f6004c8ad5/dca16d353d5bbbf7492570ec001c<br />
ef3d?OpenDocument. The village of Al-Fawar in the Governorate of Qadissiyah was reportedly ransacked by<br />
followers of radical Shi’a cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr. According to the police, no one has been held responsible<br />
for this assault; see IWPR, Gypsies Seek Government Protection, see above footnote 463. Najem Wali,<br />
journalist and writer from Al-Amarah, described how the Roma’s belongings and houses in Al-Amarah were<br />
looted in acts of vengeance by the city’s inhabitants; see: Najem Wali, Iraq Stories, 2005,<br />
http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article.php?lab=IraqStories. In addition, Kawliyah from Hilla in Babel<br />
Governorate disbanded their settlements after Imams loyal to Al-Sadr condemned them; see: Gaiutra<br />
Bahadur, In now-religious Iraq, no tolerance for Gypsies, Philadelphia Inquirer, 6 June 2005,<br />
http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12354&s2=07Read.<br />
470 IWPR, Gypsies Seek Government Protection, see above footnote 463.<br />
94