November 17th - Asking the Fairies
Talking to the displaced people living in abandoned buildings in Baghdad.
Click on image for a larger version
Click on image for a larger version
There are buildings in Baghdad, old government premises, secret police offices, properties formerly owned by members of the ruling clique and Saddam’s family, officers’ clubs, military barracks, houses, apartment blocks which are now squatted by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of families made homeless by bombings during the invasion and evictions after.
A compound which used to be a farm belonging to Uday, one of Saddam’s sons, is now home to around 135 families. People there will point out the building which served as a lab for research into chemical growth enhancers for the animals. Accommodation is in farm buildings with open doorways bricked up or in breezeblock shacks with straw rooves and there are gardens among the rubble. There is a clinic but it’s only a room. There’s no medical equipment and there aren’t any staff.
The point of going there was to interview kids living there about what they wanted and needed, to inform some organisations outside Iraq. Of dozens and dozens of stories, I’ll just tell a couple, by way of illustration.
Marwa is 11. She told us she misses her school. She used to go but, as with many girls, her parents are too afraid she’ll be kidnapped to let her go to school. It’s not an unrealistic fear – untold numbers of girls and young women have been kidnapped. Her three older brothers go to school but because the schools are segregated and hers is nowhere near theirs she can’t travel there with them and, even if she could, her parents don’t think she’d be safe within the school. A few of the girls still go, but most stay at home helping their mothers.
Marwa said they fetch water 3-5 times a day. A family consumes a lot of water, she explained, for washing dishes and clothes. She wears a headscarf and has done for about a year because she heard form her parents that her hair would burn if it was seen by people she’s not related to. Her favourite thing about school was playing with her friends at morning break. She wants to become a doctor if she gets to go back to school. There are many women doctors in Iraq, education is free and she’s a bright child, able to express herself clearly.
A lot of the kids had trouble expressing ‘wanting’. Asked what they needed, what they would like, most looked around for help before asking, “What do you mean?” We started talking instead about a fairy, a magician, who had come to offer each of them three wishes. What would they have the fairy make for them?
Marwa asked for school, blankets and headscarves. For Eid, which is coming up at the end of Ramadan, she’d like new clothes to celebrate – it’s an important part of the tradition. She also wanted things to play with.
Overall blankets were the commonest wish among the Ghazalia camp kids, because they’re cold at night. They don’t even have enough blankets. School and clothes were the next most frequent request though several of the children didn’t know the word school and had no idea what you did when you went there. Toys were fourth, followed by shoes and some also mentioned cookers and fridges to keep food fresh and water cold during the day, when it’s hot.
Despite the poverty of conditions at the camp, a significant number made a wish to stay in the compound giving, perhaps, a hint of the instability of their lives before arriving there. Umm Kadim told of losing her daughter to an unknown illness while on the run with her four children after her husband fled military service. They stayed in the desert because if they came close to the towns they were harassed by security forces and feared they would be caught. When the little girl got ill they couldn’t afford transport to hospital. They set out to bring her but it was too late. They were one of the first two families in the camp, which was frightening because they felt exposed and vulnerable.
Aal’a dropped out of school at about 10 years old, when his dad died. He’s now 17, an only child. He and his mum were evicted from their house when they couldn’t afford the $10 a month rent. Costs have risen, wages have fallen and, amid the chaos, their ration card also went astray so they can no longer collect the monthly food handout.
Aal’a works in a slaughter house. Skip the next couple of lines if you’re squeamish. His job is to blow into slits in the feet of recently slaughtered sheep to ease the skin from the carcass. His voice rasped and he mentioned a constant sore throat from blowing all day. He earns usually between 1000-1500 Dinar a day, a maximum of 2500. A dollar is 2000 Dinars. He said the only thing he wants is a safe, stable place to live. He can support his mum in every other way. She echoed his longing, her ancient face more tired than her 56 years. A safe place to live would be enough but they have nothing – no blankets, no cooker, not enough money for food.
The Al Hoda camp, in a former officers’ club, houses 350 families in less urgent poverty but, nonetheless, there were still children asking the fairy for blankets as well as toys. The first building as you enter is burnt out and when you go into people’s rooms the walls are blackened with soot. Conditions are better, with a garden and a few swings but still a lot are not going to school, especially the girls because of the ongoing fear of abduction.
As I understand it, there is a decision to clear some public buildings but to allow others to remain squatted. The Ghazalia inhabitants have a letter from the Civil Military Administration saying their right to stay is recognised until such time as someone takes responsibility for them.
Part of the problem appears to be precisely that: no one is responsible for them. Strictly they’re not refugees but internally displaced so there’s no international intervention. The position in international humanitarian law is that the occupying power takes over the main responsibilities of the deposed national government and is obliged to ensure an adequate supply of food, water and medical care (4th Geneva Convention, Art 55 and 56) and clothing, bedding, shelter and other supplies (Art 69, Protocol I Additional to the Conventions) that are essential to the survival of the civilian population within the occupied territory. Relief operations cannot be deemed to alleviate the occupying power’s responsibilities. (Info from Programme on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, Harvard University: http://www.ihlresearch.org/iraq ).
Some of the political parties are bringing supplies to people in the squats, clearly marked with the name of the party which delivered them, as a means of recruitment. Though far from ideal, it’s all they’re getting at the moment.
Meanwhile, whichever company makes the ubiquitous wall blocks is doing better out of the new Iraq than the protesting police are. After they blocked Sadoon Street and besieged the police HQ for a second day yesterday, this morning the building was surrounded by a ten foot concrete wall and reams and reams of razor wire. They’ve been promised some money in 6 days – two days per office to get the approval of one for the authorisation of a second to enable a third to process the payments. Or something like that.
I’ve finally managed to speak to the assistant to Jim Haveman, the senior advisor to the minister of health. To get to speak to him I need to make an appointment with her to tell her what I want with him so she can decide whether or not I can make an appointment to speak to him about the unpaid wages of the Kimadia workers who have been threatened to drop the claims.
In the all encompassing traffic jam on the way to the ministry, there was a Red Crescent ambulance trapped in front of me, its siren howling in four different shades of urgent, while a long line of US military vehicles passed – trucks, tanks and personnel carriers. A soldier on top of one pointed his pistol up at the underside of a bridge as they passed under it and the ambulance went on screaming.
It started off as a game, to help the children tell us what they need, but when you look around Baghdad and you see all the chaos and want and confusing priorities, it seems like whatever you want, however basic, however necessary, you might as well ask the fairies.
* The Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq has taken on distribution work for the refugee camps. You can give money for blankets and other essentials direct to the following UK bank account:
BARCLAYS BANK, BERMONDSEY BRANCH, LONDON, UK
ACCOUNT NAME: H. AHMADI
ACCOUNT NO: 80392286
SORT CODE: 20-80-57
The money in the account comes directly to the women running the Organisation’s programmes here.
* Correction: The old passports from the Saddam era are not invalid but do have to go through an approval process in order to carry on being used.
Also the Oil For Food programme is not ending but being transferred from the control of
A compound which used to be a farm belonging to Uday, one of Saddam’s sons, is now home to around 135 families. People there will point out the building which served as a lab for research into chemical growth enhancers for the animals. Accommodation is in farm buildings with open doorways bricked up or in breezeblock shacks with straw rooves and there are gardens among the rubble. There is a clinic but it’s only a room. There’s no medical equipment and there aren’t any staff.
The point of going there was to interview kids living there about what they wanted and needed, to inform some organisations outside Iraq. Of dozens and dozens of stories, I’ll just tell a couple, by way of illustration.
Marwa is 11. She told us she misses her school. She used to go but, as with many girls, her parents are too afraid she’ll be kidnapped to let her go to school. It’s not an unrealistic fear – untold numbers of girls and young women have been kidnapped. Her three older brothers go to school but because the schools are segregated and hers is nowhere near theirs she can’t travel there with them and, even if she could, her parents don’t think she’d be safe within the school. A few of the girls still go, but most stay at home helping their mothers.
Marwa said they fetch water 3-5 times a day. A family consumes a lot of water, she explained, for washing dishes and clothes. She wears a headscarf and has done for about a year because she heard form her parents that her hair would burn if it was seen by people she’s not related to. Her favourite thing about school was playing with her friends at morning break. She wants to become a doctor if she gets to go back to school. There are many women doctors in Iraq, education is free and she’s a bright child, able to express herself clearly.
A lot of the kids had trouble expressing ‘wanting’. Asked what they needed, what they would like, most looked around for help before asking, “What do you mean?” We started talking instead about a fairy, a magician, who had come to offer each of them three wishes. What would they have the fairy make for them?
Marwa asked for school, blankets and headscarves. For Eid, which is coming up at the end of Ramadan, she’d like new clothes to celebrate – it’s an important part of the tradition. She also wanted things to play with.
Overall blankets were the commonest wish among the Ghazalia camp kids, because they’re cold at night. They don’t even have enough blankets. School and clothes were the next most frequent request though several of the children didn’t know the word school and had no idea what you did when you went there. Toys were fourth, followed by shoes and some also mentioned cookers and fridges to keep food fresh and water cold during the day, when it’s hot.
Despite the poverty of conditions at the camp, a significant number made a wish to stay in the compound giving, perhaps, a hint of the instability of their lives before arriving there. Umm Kadim told of losing her daughter to an unknown illness while on the run with her four children after her husband fled military service. They stayed in the desert because if they came close to the towns they were harassed by security forces and feared they would be caught. When the little girl got ill they couldn’t afford transport to hospital. They set out to bring her but it was too late. They were one of the first two families in the camp, which was frightening because they felt exposed and vulnerable.
Aal’a dropped out of school at about 10 years old, when his dad died. He’s now 17, an only child. He and his mum were evicted from their house when they couldn’t afford the $10 a month rent. Costs have risen, wages have fallen and, amid the chaos, their ration card also went astray so they can no longer collect the monthly food handout.
Aal’a works in a slaughter house. Skip the next couple of lines if you’re squeamish. His job is to blow into slits in the feet of recently slaughtered sheep to ease the skin from the carcass. His voice rasped and he mentioned a constant sore throat from blowing all day. He earns usually between 1000-1500 Dinar a day, a maximum of 2500. A dollar is 2000 Dinars. He said the only thing he wants is a safe, stable place to live. He can support his mum in every other way. She echoed his longing, her ancient face more tired than her 56 years. A safe place to live would be enough but they have nothing – no blankets, no cooker, not enough money for food.
The Al Hoda camp, in a former officers’ club, houses 350 families in less urgent poverty but, nonetheless, there were still children asking the fairy for blankets as well as toys. The first building as you enter is burnt out and when you go into people’s rooms the walls are blackened with soot. Conditions are better, with a garden and a few swings but still a lot are not going to school, especially the girls because of the ongoing fear of abduction.
As I understand it, there is a decision to clear some public buildings but to allow others to remain squatted. The Ghazalia inhabitants have a letter from the Civil Military Administration saying their right to stay is recognised until such time as someone takes responsibility for them.
Part of the problem appears to be precisely that: no one is responsible for them. Strictly they’re not refugees but internally displaced so there’s no international intervention. The position in international humanitarian law is that the occupying power takes over the main responsibilities of the deposed national government and is obliged to ensure an adequate supply of food, water and medical care (4th Geneva Convention, Art 55 and 56) and clothing, bedding, shelter and other supplies (Art 69, Protocol I Additional to the Conventions) that are essential to the survival of the civilian population within the occupied territory. Relief operations cannot be deemed to alleviate the occupying power’s responsibilities. (Info from Programme on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, Harvard University: http://www.ihlresearch.org/iraq ).
Some of the political parties are bringing supplies to people in the squats, clearly marked with the name of the party which delivered them, as a means of recruitment. Though far from ideal, it’s all they’re getting at the moment.
Meanwhile, whichever company makes the ubiquitous wall blocks is doing better out of the new Iraq than the protesting police are. After they blocked Sadoon Street and besieged the police HQ for a second day yesterday, this morning the building was surrounded by a ten foot concrete wall and reams and reams of razor wire. They’ve been promised some money in 6 days – two days per office to get the approval of one for the authorisation of a second to enable a third to process the payments. Or something like that.
I’ve finally managed to speak to the assistant to Jim Haveman, the senior advisor to the minister of health. To get to speak to him I need to make an appointment with her to tell her what I want with him so she can decide whether or not I can make an appointment to speak to him about the unpaid wages of the Kimadia workers who have been threatened to drop the claims.
In the all encompassing traffic jam on the way to the ministry, there was a Red Crescent ambulance trapped in front of me, its siren howling in four different shades of urgent, while a long line of US military vehicles passed – trucks, tanks and personnel carriers. A soldier on top of one pointed his pistol up at the underside of a bridge as they passed under it and the ambulance went on screaming.
It started off as a game, to help the children tell us what they need, but when you look around Baghdad and you see all the chaos and want and confusing priorities, it seems like whatever you want, however basic, however necessary, you might as well ask the fairies.
* The Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq has taken on distribution work for the refugee camps. You can give money for blankets and other essentials direct to the following UK bank account:
BARCLAYS BANK, BERMONDSEY BRANCH, LONDON, UK
ACCOUNT NAME: H. AHMADI
ACCOUNT NO: 80392286
SORT CODE: 20-80-57
The money in the account comes directly to the women running the Organisation’s programmes here.
* Correction: The old passports from the Saddam era are not invalid but do have to go through an approval process in order to carry on being used.
Also the Oil For Food programme is not ending but being transferred from the control of