On the Ground with Refugees in Kurdistan
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 12:22 amOn the Ground with Refugees in Kurdistan tall, unfinished concrete buildings loom over the city of Erbil
Here in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. I see no movement inside or around any of the buildings; none whatsoever. This gives rise to an eerie feeling, since the U.N. High Commission for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is saying there are millions of new arrivals to this city.
Every fourth person here is a refugee or internally displaced—people seeking refuge from the war in Syria or Iraqis fleeing cities threatened by ISIS. There are now 245,000 Syrians in Kurdistan, with more arriving each day. Internally Displaced Persons number over 1 million. A person from the IOM told me that just last week 4,000 families arrived, displaced from Iraq’s Anbar region to the south.
But the buildings sit half-finished and empty because due to low oil prices and rampant corruption, the economy of Kurdistan is in shambles. Teachers and other government workers are not receiving salaries. Health care professionals report they have insufficient medicines to treat sick people; 1,200 cancer patients are going without treatment. And these economic challenges are compounded by the continuous arrival of people desparate for food and shelter.
Although the news has been dominated by the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe, there are hundreds of thousands of Syrians plus 3.4 million displaced persons in Iraq. “The Kurdish have been very generous, but now they are barely keeping their heads above water. If another 100,000 people come, it will be unthinkable,” an U.N. agency representative told me. “Kurdistan has taken more refugees than the entire European Union, and yet they have to get on their knees to beg for assistance.”
The U.N. commission is in a contingency mode. There is talk of the Iraqi government offensive against ISIL in Mosel, only 50 miles away. Tens of thousands could be displaced. Where will they go? How will they be cared for?
There are more than forty refugee camps in Kurdistan, but only 39 percent of the refugees and 20 percent of the IDPs are accommodated by the camps. The rest of the new arrivals live whereever they can.
The economic crises here leads some U.N. relief workers to advocate for a cash assistance program like that implemented for refugees in Jordan. “We have to move away from the charity approach,” one person told me. “What they need most is cash so people can pay rent, buy medicine and support the local economy.” The U.N. has launched an appeal for more than $860 million dollars.
The compassion of relief workers is as palpable as their distress. “People’s resilience is unbelievable,” said a young woman from IOM. “It has given me faith in the ability to bounce back, to appreciate life.”
I met with a Dominican religious sister who is herself displaced from the nearby town of Qaraqosh, which fell to ISIL in 2014. She told me about a new elementary school she has helped start here. The children belong to displaced families, as do all of the teachers.
“We have come to recognize the only way to build community is through education, not only to the 6th grade, but through high school,” she told me. “We have decided to fight ISIS with education.”
http://www.progressive.org/news/2016/05 ... -kurdistan
Here in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. I see no movement inside or around any of the buildings; none whatsoever. This gives rise to an eerie feeling, since the U.N. High Commission for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is saying there are millions of new arrivals to this city.
Every fourth person here is a refugee or internally displaced—people seeking refuge from the war in Syria or Iraqis fleeing cities threatened by ISIS. There are now 245,000 Syrians in Kurdistan, with more arriving each day. Internally Displaced Persons number over 1 million. A person from the IOM told me that just last week 4,000 families arrived, displaced from Iraq’s Anbar region to the south.
But the buildings sit half-finished and empty because due to low oil prices and rampant corruption, the economy of Kurdistan is in shambles. Teachers and other government workers are not receiving salaries. Health care professionals report they have insufficient medicines to treat sick people; 1,200 cancer patients are going without treatment. And these economic challenges are compounded by the continuous arrival of people desparate for food and shelter.
Although the news has been dominated by the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe, there are hundreds of thousands of Syrians plus 3.4 million displaced persons in Iraq. “The Kurdish have been very generous, but now they are barely keeping their heads above water. If another 100,000 people come, it will be unthinkable,” an U.N. agency representative told me. “Kurdistan has taken more refugees than the entire European Union, and yet they have to get on their knees to beg for assistance.”
The U.N. commission is in a contingency mode. There is talk of the Iraqi government offensive against ISIL in Mosel, only 50 miles away. Tens of thousands could be displaced. Where will they go? How will they be cared for?
There are more than forty refugee camps in Kurdistan, but only 39 percent of the refugees and 20 percent of the IDPs are accommodated by the camps. The rest of the new arrivals live whereever they can.
The economic crises here leads some U.N. relief workers to advocate for a cash assistance program like that implemented for refugees in Jordan. “We have to move away from the charity approach,” one person told me. “What they need most is cash so people can pay rent, buy medicine and support the local economy.” The U.N. has launched an appeal for more than $860 million dollars.
The compassion of relief workers is as palpable as their distress. “People’s resilience is unbelievable,” said a young woman from IOM. “It has given me faith in the ability to bounce back, to appreciate life.”
I met with a Dominican religious sister who is herself displaced from the nearby town of Qaraqosh, which fell to ISIL in 2014. She told me about a new elementary school she has helped start here. The children belong to displaced families, as do all of the teachers.
“We have come to recognize the only way to build community is through education, not only to the 6th grade, but through high school,” she told me. “We have decided to fight ISIS with education.”
http://www.progressive.org/news/2016/05 ... -kurdistan
