As new wars rage, refugees of an older conflict in Iraq struggle to survive

KAWA COMPOUND, Kurdistan Region - As the waves of refugees from wars in Syria and Iraq continue to wash into the Kurdistan Region, the homeless and landless of another war nearly three decades ago complain they are forgotten and struggling for survival.

More than 27 years after the end of the 1980-88 war between Iran and Iraq, some of the refugees from that conflict languish at the Kawa compound in northern Iraq, resigned to a world they believe has forgotten them and moved on to other wars and victims.

Some 1.5 million refugees and displaced from the wars still raging in Syria and the rest of Iraq are scattered across the Kurdistan Region, most housed in camps and others wherever they could find shelter. 

According to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, the Kawa camp houses 1,059 people, all from Iran’s Kurdish regions. 

This was supposed to be a temporary arrangement: “UNHCR is moving ahead with preparations for the transfer of some 2,000 Iranian Kurdish refugees living in difficult security conditions in Al Tash refugee camp, near Ramadi in central Iraq, to a temporary site at Kawa in northern Iraq, near Erbil,” the UN agency said in a brief note.

That was in October 2005. Since then, many at the Kawa camp have lost hope of ever seeing better lives.

“A friend of mine told me ‘ these small houses are built for us, and the graveyard next to us is where we will be buried when we die,’” said Mohamad Ali, 47, a father of 10 who lives in a two-room-house built with UN funding 10 years ago.

According to the 2006 Iraq Nationality Law, refugees who have resided for 10 years or longer can apply for Iraqi nationality. But that right is completely denied to Kurdish Iranian refugees due to political sensitivities, according to a UNHCR statement to Rudaw.  

Ali told Rudaw they were expecting to leave Iraq to a third country where they would be able to apply for citizenship as promised by the UN. But that never happened. 

Making a living cleaning streets


'We have 40 to 50 primary-school boys. Only five of them might enter secondary school'. Photo by Farzin Hasan.

The very young-looking boys line up with elderly men at six in the morning, waiting for the bus to take them from the Kawa Compound, about 20 kilometers from the Kurdistan capital of Erbil, to work.

They are Iranian-Kurdish boys who left school, some after primary and others after secondary, to work with their families as street cleaners. That is the main earning among the refugees in the Kawa community.

“We have 40 to 50 primary-school boys. Only five of them might enter secondary school. The rest are all street cleaners now,” said Ali, who is also a former member of a committee from Kawa that represented the refugees in dealings with UN officials.

Working eight hours daily, the cleaners are paid almost $300 a month, part of which they spend on transportation and food. To make enough to support families, most work double shifts.

“My son was able to enter college in Shaqlawa (about 50 km northeast of Erbil) in 2006. But one time he didn’t have money for the return bus fare for 15 days. He was so mad and disappointed that he left his studies and became a street cleaner. He still is,” Ali told Rudaw, adding that his son could be a teacher by now if he had continued.

Refugees claim that, because of the high cost of living, they have to work 13 hours a day, doing two shifts.

“If you don’t take both shifts and not work days and nights, your family will not survive,” said Mohamad Qadir, a 29-year-old with a look of fatigue and dejection on his face. 

The girls at the camp are luckier, since conservative traditions bar them from working as street cleaners or in other menial jobs.  That means they have a better chance of finishing high school.

But even the few girls who won the struggle to finish university remain unemployed.

“You need a citizenship card in order to be hired in the public sector, which we don’t have,” said Iman Mohamad, a 22-year-old university graduate. She said it was hard to find jobs in the private sector, and that even if they did find work, the cost of getting to work and back would be so high there would be nothing left to help their families.

“There is no life here. It is really sad to see our young kids living like this -- in the streets and not in school,” she lamented.

Depression and other mental illnesses hang over the camp like a shroud


Zainab Jassim, a mother of six suffers from depression. Photo by Farzin Hasaan.

“There are no words to describe my health and my life -- just take a look around my house and you will understand everything,” said 40-year-old Zainab Jassim, a mother of six who suffers from depression.

“I am sick; sometimes I can’t even leave my bed. I can’t clean the house or take care of my kids. My husband and I often have big problems. You know, when you are poor and have so many problems it can happen easily,” she explained, sitting in her dark, cramped and messy living quarters.

She said that some financial help the family received once from the UNHC was “a great help.”

Shirin Khorshid, a single mother of four whose 16-year-old daughter suffers from untreated depression because they family cannot afford the cost of treatment, complained that financial help from the UNHCR, when it comes, is not distributed equally or fairly.

“My daughter left home because she was tired of us and tired of everything else. She is sick and needs help,” she recounted, explaining that the girl had left the camp and joined Iranian Kurdish fighters on the frontlines in Kirkuk.

Khorshid said that the fellow refugee who has taken charge of distributing the funds, Ahoo Mustafa Ghafour, told her there was no money provided by the UN.

Ghafour, the unelected representative of the Kawa settlement, is the only person in touch with the Qandil Swedish humanitarian aid organization, which is a UNHCR partner and charged improving the lives of refugees in Iraq. She refused to speak to Rudaw about allegations by refugees that they were not receiving the aid sent for them.

Many Kawa residents complained about the lack of a committee to represent them in dealings with the Qandil organization or UNHCR.

“I am not sure whether or not the UN knows about our problems,” said Shahryar Rostam, 41, a former camp representative who explained it has been three years that residents have lost touch with UNHCR.

“We used to have a representative committee directly elected by the refugees,” he said. “But now no election is held, and a former representative, Ahoo, has imposed herself and is ruling over the camp, despite the fact that most residents reject her authority.”

“If we are refugees, then we have to be treated according to the Geneva Convention for refugee rights,” said Ali, also a former representative from the camp. “If the UN is not giving us our full rights, at least give us half.”

In an email statement to Rudaw, UNHCR’s reporting officer, Chloe Coves, said that the organization carries out regular meetings at Kawa.

“UNHCR conducts regular meetings with refugees in Kawa settlement, its partner Qandil carries out protection monitoring,” she explained.

She added, also, that UNHCR’s efforts to reach agreement with the Kawa community on choosing representatives had failed. 

“There was no consensus on the part of different community members on the roles and responsibilities of the council, which stalled further discussion on this issue,” Coves said.