IRAQ: A Visit to the Makhmour Refugee Camp
December 30th, 2008
in:
CPTnet
30 December 2008
IRAQ: A Visit to the Makhmour Refugee Camp
by Peggy Gish
"Sixteen years ago our families left our homes in Southeastern Anatolia Turkey because of violence against Kurds, and lived as displaced persons within our own country. Today we are in Iraq and still longing for a Kurdish homeland and for peace," one of the leaders of the Makhmour Refugee Camp told our CPT Iraq group. "In Turkey we were threatened if we continued to speak and teach the Kurdish language. We fled because they would have imprisoned and tortured us if we did not deny our cultural heritage.”
When these refugees left Turkey between 1993 and 1994, they first lived in a camp set up for them by the United Nations in the Atrush area, just inside the Iraqi border. Turkey accused the refugees of participating in PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) terrorist activities and continued to bomb and raid along the border, so the camp moved south. During the Kurdish civil war in the KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) in the mid-90's, the Turkish refugees asked to move further south to be outside of the KRG. In 1998, the UN moved the camp to Makhmour, about 60 km south of Erbil, Iraq.
The district and city of Makhmour, (which is about 90% Kurdish and 10% Arab) and the camp on its outskirts are in the Ninewa Governorate, yet they get very little help or services from its capital, Mosul. Erbil, in the KRG, gives the town and the camp some assistance such as providing teachers for their schools, tanks of water, and electrical transformers, and allowing their youth to attend universities in the KRG.
Inside, the camp is much like a traditional Iraqi village. Along the narrow streets are small stone houses with stone fences around them, children playing, mothers hanging up laundry, older children walking home from school or playing soccer. Residents invited us to a gathering where men and women who had had family members killed by Turkey warmly greeted us. They pointed out hundreds of pictures on the walls of those killed.
A leader told us, "We want to go back to our homes in Turkey, but to do that we need amnesty from the Turkish government, for us and for the thousands of Kurds in Turkish prisons. We need compensation so we could rebuild our homes and villages. This will work only if international agencies guarantee our safety as we return. The US, however, continues to have dual policies with Kurds. They support the Kurds in northern Iraq, but see the Kurds in Turkey as bad. They helped imprison our leader and supported Turkish suppression of Kurds. The US and European Union have the power to change their policies with Turkey and solve the Kurdish problem diplomatically."
Another mentioned that in Turkey, the Council of Peace, a Kurdish political party in Turkey, has been working nonviolently to secure rights for the Kurds and said, "We need international groups to put pressure on Turkey to change their repressive policies and to see us not just as `terrorists,' but as a people longing for respect as a people and culture."
30 December 2008
IRAQ: A Visit to the Makhmour Refugee Camp
by Peggy Gish
"Sixteen years ago our families left our homes in Southeastern Anatolia Turkey because of violence against Kurds, and lived as displaced persons within our own country. Today we are in Iraq and still longing for a Kurdish homeland and for peace," one of the leaders of the Makhmour Refugee Camp told our CPT Iraq group. "In Turkey we were threatened if we continued to speak and teach the Kurdish language. We fled because they would have imprisoned and tortured us if we did not deny our cultural heritage.”
When these refugees left Turkey between 1993 and 1994, they first lived in a camp set up for them by the United Nations in the Atrush area, just inside the Iraqi border. Turkey accused the refugees of participating in PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) terrorist activities and continued to bomb and raid along the border, so the camp moved south. During the Kurdish civil war in the KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) in the mid-90's, the Turkish refugees asked to move further south to be outside of the KRG. In 1998, the UN moved the camp to Makhmour, about 60 km south of Erbil, Iraq.
The district and city of Makhmour, (which is about 90% Kurdish and 10% Arab) and the camp on its outskirts are in the Ninewa Governorate, yet they get very little help or services from its capital, Mosul. Erbil, in the KRG, gives the town and the camp some assistance such as providing teachers for their schools, tanks of water, and electrical transformers, and allowing their youth to attend universities in the KRG.
Inside, the camp is much like a traditional Iraqi village. Along the narrow streets are small stone houses with stone fences around them, children playing, mothers hanging up laundry, older children walking home from school or playing soccer. Residents invited us to a gathering where men and women who had had family members killed by Turkey warmly greeted us. They pointed out hundreds of pictures on the walls of those killed.
A leader told us, "We want to go back to our homes in Turkey, but to do that we need amnesty from the Turkish government, for us and for the thousands of Kurds in Turkish prisons. We need compensation so we could rebuild our homes and villages. This will work only if international agencies guarantee our safety as we return. The US, however, continues to have dual policies with Kurds. They support the Kurds in northern Iraq, but see the Kurds in Turkey as bad. They helped imprison our leader and supported Turkish suppression of Kurds. The US and European Union have the power to change their policies with Turkey and solve the Kurdish problem diplomatically."
Another mentioned that in Turkey, the Council of Peace, a Kurdish political party in Turkey, has been working nonviolently to secure rights for the Kurds and said, "We need international groups to put pressure on Turkey to change their repressive policies and to see us not just as `terrorists,' but as a people longing for respect as a people and culture."
