CPTnet
28 May 2009
IRAQ: Life in the Zharawa Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camp

by Gerald Paoli


The camp nurse and several small children greeted us as we entered the IDP camp housing villagers who have left their homes because of Turkish military bombing raids and have chosen not to go back until the political situation is resolved.  She invited us into her tent supplied by the United Nation’s High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR).  A furrowed brow replaced her broad smile as she began to describe her fears for the villagers living there.

“I am afraid for the old people and the young ones,” said the nurse, regarding the summer heat.  “When people live so close to each other, many diseases will come and spread quickly.”  Looking at the children, she wrung her hands.  “Dysentery and dehydration are sure to follow.”

The camp has forty-five tents, gray on the outside and gold-colored on the inside, for 132 families.  That comes to roughly three families per every two tents.  Each tent measures 4 meters by 4 meters wide by 2.2 meters high, and is pitched over a 9-square-meter slab of cement framed by a border of cinder blocks 2 rows high.  
The residents of Zharawa camp have devised a system of sharing tents by rotating with each other, spending some time living with their families in the municipality and some time in the camp.  While in school, children live with relatives in Zharawa municipality, separated from their nuclear families.

Because of the great strain on the local economy and what public services exist, the municipality of Zharawa was reluctant to allow construction of the new camp and created several obstacles.  The United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) recognizes that the site is not a sustainable resettlement solution for the camp’s residents.

The camp has no trees for shade in the fierce heat and no electricity.  The villagers may not have animals of any kind in the camp.  This prohibition is just as well, because they had to sell what animals they could to buy the plot of land on which the camp is built.  The UNHCR has promised them a well, but the villagers have a wait-and-see attitude about whether the agency will follow through.  And since nearly every inch of land they occupy is covered with either a tent or a toilet, they cannot grow any food inside the camp.

The refugees could grow food in the empty adjacent field but they may not do so because it is private property.  So they rely on what relief they get from the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) rations and the meager supplies the Iraq national food card can buy them.

Our visit provided a rare glimpse into the lives of people who live outside the “radar” of international news but squarely within the crosshairs of sophisticated weaponry used by attackers who barely acknowledge that their victims exist.