While the rate of people fleeing their homes in Iraq has decreased during the first half of 2008, daily life for the thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) living in tent camps remains grim, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.
“Tent camp residents have little or no access to basic services, cannot protect themselves against the elements or extreme weather, and are located far away from medical care, education and other services,” the IOM statement said. “These harsh conditions, combined with a cultural aversion to living without familial privacy and personal dignity, make tent camps a last resort for Iraqi IDPs.”
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IOM, the 125-nation migration body, described the miserable conditions in Iraq’s largest IDP camp, al-Manathira, which is 20km south of Najaf (about 160km south of the capital, Baghdad) and home to 231 families (about 1,400 individuals). It said “families who were evicted from public buildings live in cramped tents and caravans with limited sanitation and drinking water”.
A lack of family privacy – highly valued in Iraqi culture – combined with unemployment and overcrowding has caused “significant tensions” among the inhabitants, it said.
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“[E]very five to 10 tents shares one toilet and that embarrasses families as they can’t have privacy and that is why we’ve dug a pit in one corner of our tent,” [al-Khafaji, a father-of-two said].
In Qalawa camp in the northern province of Sulaymaniyah, IOM said that a group of IDPs who had settled on a piece of open land two years ago still do not have sanitation, electricity or toilets.
They “live surrounded by garbage”, the report said. “As a result, cases of typhoid have recently been reported.”
Source: IRIN, 17 Aug 2008
