Winter closing in on refugees in Kurdistan
DUHOK, Kurdistan Region - White tents stand in orderly rows outside the Yezidi village of Sharya. The new tents on concrete foundations will give some shelter in the coming winter to Yezidi families displaced by Islamic State’s invasion of their homeland this summer.
While thousands of Syrian Kurds have recently poured over the Syrian border into Turkey to escape an ISIS advance, in neighbouring Iraq aid workers are struggling to prepare internally displaced people (IDPs) such as those at Sharya from the cold weather to come.
In a joint plan, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the United Nations have pledged that before November 15 they intend “to meet the most urgent needs for shelter, food, health, water and sanitation”. The UN says it faces a vast funding gap to pay for the urgent care of an estimated 860,000 IDPs in the Kurdistan Region, already coping withan influx of refugees from the Syrian civil war.
More than two months after they fled their towns and villages for fear of IS, most of the Christian and Yezidi IDPs are still camping on building sites and in houses that lack doors, windows and sanitary services. They corner off separate space for the family with piles of stones or blankets. They hook up to electricity as best they can.
Christians in the Kurdish capital Erbil are still sleeping in churches. When the schools started up in autumn, they had to leave school buildings that previously offered a refuge. Many complain bitterly, and more and more declare they want to leave the country at the first possible opportunity. “Where is the foreign aid, what should we do when the winter and the rains start?” they ask.
Foreign aid has been slow in being distributed, and some was waiting for weeks before it was distributed.
An example was Dutch aid that was to have been distributed by the Kurdish aid organisation Rwanga. The Dutch had sent energy foods, which were meant to be dropped to Yezidi stuck on Mount Shingal at the height of the emergency. But when that drop was called off, as it was no longer needed, the food got stuck in the Rwanga’s warehouses for weeks, while the refugees who had by then escaped the mountain needed it just as urgently.
When asked if they have received foreign aid, most local aid workers say they have not - like Ayad Ajajvian, who helps care for 60,000 IDPs in the Yezidi town of Khanke, outside Duhok. Most of them are housed in tents, some in unfinished houses or with local families.
“Many diplomats came to take a look,” Ajajvian says. But he does not know of anything coming out of those visits, he adds. He praises the help the International Red Cross offered, donating blankets and food. “I don’t know what we would have done without them.”
Other international aid only arrived slowly. Before the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, came in with their tents, the community had already set up a camp by itself.
Around the community house of Khanke tents are placed without any real order. Nearer to the River Tigris newer ones have be placed in neat rows, already covered in yellow dust. And next to them concrete foundations have been laid for tents, with toilet and shower blocks being built.
Only the new tents will be suitable for habitation during the winter, says Pyr Diyan, the coordinator of the Khanke Camp. October rains have already begun and the camp risks becoming a mud pool. “And the nights are very cold as we are so near to the river,” says Diyan.
On his wish list are not only paved roads, but also caravans to replace most of the tents. They would be better suited to the winter and can be heated more economically. “We already asked the UNHCR to provide us with them. But they said they could not promise us anything.”
Syrian refugees in the nearby Domiz Camp, by contrast, were given concrete housing as the camp expanded.
The Kurdish authorities want the IDPs to return home as soon as the Kurdish Peshmerga can liberate their home territory. ISIS has been expelled from some villages and the first villagers have gone home. But not everybody wants to go back. Many are scared to and others have had their homes destroyed.
“If we build houses here, people will surely not go back,” Pyr Diyan acknowledged a sigh.
It is a race against time, and one in which IDPs will have a difficult choice to make. To go back to a difficult situation at home, or to survive the winter in the chill of a tent encampment.
While thousands of Syrian Kurds have recently poured over the Syrian border into Turkey to escape an ISIS advance, in neighbouring Iraq aid workers are struggling to prepare internally displaced people (IDPs) such as those at Sharya from the cold weather to come.
In a joint plan, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the United Nations have pledged that before November 15 they intend “to meet the most urgent needs for shelter, food, health, water and sanitation”. The UN says it faces a vast funding gap to pay for the urgent care of an estimated 860,000 IDPs in the Kurdistan Region, already coping withan influx of refugees from the Syrian civil war.
More than two months after they fled their towns and villages for fear of IS, most of the Christian and Yezidi IDPs are still camping on building sites and in houses that lack doors, windows and sanitary services. They corner off separate space for the family with piles of stones or blankets. They hook up to electricity as best they can.
Christians in the Kurdish capital Erbil are still sleeping in churches. When the schools started up in autumn, they had to leave school buildings that previously offered a refuge. Many complain bitterly, and more and more declare they want to leave the country at the first possible opportunity. “Where is the foreign aid, what should we do when the winter and the rains start?” they ask.
Foreign aid has been slow in being distributed, and some was waiting for weeks before it was distributed.
An example was Dutch aid that was to have been distributed by the Kurdish aid organisation Rwanga. The Dutch had sent energy foods, which were meant to be dropped to Yezidi stuck on Mount Shingal at the height of the emergency. But when that drop was called off, as it was no longer needed, the food got stuck in the Rwanga’s warehouses for weeks, while the refugees who had by then escaped the mountain needed it just as urgently.
When asked if they have received foreign aid, most local aid workers say they have not - like Ayad Ajajvian, who helps care for 60,000 IDPs in the Yezidi town of Khanke, outside Duhok. Most of them are housed in tents, some in unfinished houses or with local families.
“Many diplomats came to take a look,” Ajajvian says. But he does not know of anything coming out of those visits, he adds. He praises the help the International Red Cross offered, donating blankets and food. “I don’t know what we would have done without them.”
Other international aid only arrived slowly. Before the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, came in with their tents, the community had already set up a camp by itself.
Around the community house of Khanke tents are placed without any real order. Nearer to the River Tigris newer ones have be placed in neat rows, already covered in yellow dust. And next to them concrete foundations have been laid for tents, with toilet and shower blocks being built.
Only the new tents will be suitable for habitation during the winter, says Pyr Diyan, the coordinator of the Khanke Camp. October rains have already begun and the camp risks becoming a mud pool. “And the nights are very cold as we are so near to the river,” says Diyan.
On his wish list are not only paved roads, but also caravans to replace most of the tents. They would be better suited to the winter and can be heated more economically. “We already asked the UNHCR to provide us with them. But they said they could not promise us anything.”
Syrian refugees in the nearby Domiz Camp, by contrast, were given concrete housing as the camp expanded.
The Kurdish authorities want the IDPs to return home as soon as the Kurdish Peshmerga can liberate their home territory. ISIS has been expelled from some villages and the first villagers have gone home. But not everybody wants to go back. Many are scared to and others have had their homes destroyed.
“If we build houses here, people will surely not go back,” Pyr Diyan acknowledged a sigh.
It is a race against time, and one in which IDPs will have a difficult choice to make. To go back to a difficult situation at home, or to survive the winter in the chill of a tent encampment.