Middle East diary

I am in Amman, Jordan, meeting with humanitarian and Iraqi colleagues to get updated on the situation in Iraq.  Of primary concern to the humanitarian community is the plight of people forced from their homes due to the escalating violence.  Our best estimates are that there are about 2.2 million displaced within Iraq and an additional 2 million refugees in neighboring countries.  This represents more than 1 in every 6 Iraqis.  The situation is now acknowledged as the largest population migration crisis in the Middle East since the 1948 displacement of Palestinians from present day Israel.  And the trend continues, with an estimated 2,000 additional Iraqis being displaced every day.

BBC recently interviewed Andrew Harper, the head of UNHCR Iraq support unit, about the situation.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7036949.stm

Here is a more comprehensive overview from Andrew Harper:
www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=644

And here is an excellent map from UNHCR that shows the population movements:
UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Iraq Situation Map, Situation as at July 2007

Minority groups especially vulnerable

Minorities in Iraq find themselves in a uniquely difficult situation because they lack the more extensive clan and family networks that can provide some degree of protection.  And they don’t have militias to protect them like the larger sectarian groups.  The attack on the Yazidi sect in August, in which 310 were killed, was the single deadliest attack since the U.S. invasion in 2003.  Palestinians, Turkmen, Mandeans, Shabaks, and other minority groups have been disproportionately targeted, displaced and killed.  In most cases these groups don’t have large communities outside of Iraq that speak of their plight so get little international or media attention.  Given the level of violence and threats against these various minorities, people are beginning to raise the possibility that some of these groups will simply vanish from Iraq in the coming months and years. 

Christians in Iraq

Christians are one of the larger minority groups in Iraq, once believed to number around 1 million, or about 4% of the population.  Today the number is believed to be about half that, many having fled to Jordan and Syria where they make up somewhere between 20-40% of the Iraqi refugees there.  

This recent Washington Post article paints a grim picture of the situation for Christians:  www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/05/AR2007100502147.html

It ends with the following:

The one thing most Christians agree on is their view of the future: bleak.

Although at least a dozen churches simply have closed, some seminaries and nunneries have shifted their bases to the north. For those still open, such as the Chaldean Catholic Virgin Mary in central Baghdad, attendance at Mass is down by more than half, officials said.

[William Warda, founder of Hamorabi, a Christian-led national human rights group in Iraq,] predicts an exodus of Christians from Iraq if Western countries relax their immigration policies.

"If the U.S. and Europe open their doors, the Christians in Iraq will be finished," Warda said. "They will all leave."

In downtown Hebron, abandoned stalls line a former Palestinian commercial street alongside an Israeli settlement. The wire above the street protects Palestinians from garbage, bricks, and other debris thrown from the settlers above.. Photo: Steve Weaver

East Jerusalem--Last week I went to Hebron in the West Bank to meet with the Ecumenical Accompaniers of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI).  The EAPPI grew out of discussion between Palestinian churches and the World Council of Churches in 2001 and 2002.  Ecumenical Accompaniers (EAs) participate in the program for a period of three months in one of five locations through East Jerusalem and the West Bank.  The EAs have many roles and responsibilities which vary somewhat depending on location.  In general terms EAs are present to serve as international observers of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, monitor its impact on Palestinians, and mitigate its negative effects when possible.

Hebron – A Microcosm of the Occupation

Hebron finds itself in a uniquely challenging situation.  It is the only city in the West Bank with Jewish settlements in its center.  The measures taken by Israeli security forces to protect the several hundred settlers have had a profound impact on the lives of thousands of Palestinians.  Parts of the city have been closed to Palestinians by military order.  According to the Israeli agency B’Tselem 1,014 Palesintian housing units have been vacated and 1,829 Palestinian businesses closed due to the situation since 2000.  The heart of Hebron, long a center of Palestinian commerce in the southern West Bank, has been turned into a ghost town.  Walking around this area I saw razor wire, soldiers, roof top military posts, vandalism, wire caging for personal and property protection from violence, and abandoned shops, homes and streets. As one person said when I told them I was going to Hebron, “It is a cliché, but it is true, Hebron is a microcosm of the occupation and its impact.”

Palestinian girls ascending a stairway to reach their school in downtown Hebron. An Ecumenical Accompanier watches to help insure their safety. A building of settlers is behind her. Photo: Steve Weaver

Going to School

Another reality for Palestinians living in the shadow of the settlers in Hebron is violence and intimidation.  One of the primary responsibilities of the Ecumenical Accompaniers in Hebron – the reason EAPPI was invited to go to Hebron in the first place – is to make sure the students of the all-girls Cordoba School make it to and from school safely.  The difficulty for the girls results from the school being adjacent to the Jewish settlement of Beit Hadassah.  To get to school the girls must pass through a checkpoint, walk along an abandoned Palestinian street that is now a military zone, pass a military kiosk of armed Israeli soldiers, and finally pass within a hundred feet of the settlers’ residence.  It is here, nearly at the school, that the girls are most at risk of intimidation and violence from the settlers.  EAs position themselves at just inside the first check point and by the settlers’ residence.

I was shown a video from 2005 taken by an EA of a confrontation by young settler girls and boys.  It started with verbal harassment and blocking of pathways, but quickly escalated to stone throwing and Palestinian girls cowering together as they try to descend a treacherous stairway.  The soldiers positioned at the bottom of the stairs, after watching for some minutes, eventually intervened, but not before some of the girls fell down the stairs and were injured.

The international presence in Hebron provides a valuable role not only for the Palestinians it tries to assist, but by providing a source of information for the international community as well – information of about the daily violence and humiliation Palestinians confront as a result of the occupation.

For more information about EAPPI go to www.eappi.org.

For more about B’Tselem’s work in Hebron go to www.btselem.org/english/hebron.

Here are two excellent short videos from B’Tselem about Hebron:

www.btselem.org/english/Video/200705_Hebron_Introduction.asp

www.btselem.org/english/Video/20070411_Barred_from_Home.asp

Here is an issue of EAPPI's publication "Chain Reaction." (PDF File) See page 8 for a story about Cordoba School.

I went to Amman a few weeks ago to get an update on the situation of Iraqi refugees living in Jordan.  While I was there MECC (Middle East Council of Churches), a local partner of CWS, was distributing a recent shipment of CWS kits and blankets.  One of these distributions was at St. Ephraim’s Syrian Orthodox Church in East Amman in early June.  There are about 1,000 Iraqis who attend St. Ephraim’s who have fled Iraq in the last couple years as the violence there has spiraled out of control.  I went to the distribution in order to meet some of these families.  Here are the stories of two of them.

The first family I met was a woman with her two daughters.  (She asked that I not use their names but permitted these photos of the girls.)  About three months ago the family was celebrating the 5th birthday of the older daughter in Baghdad.  There were a lot of cars parked outside on the street due to the guests.  A passing US military patrol stopped to ask what was happening inside.  When they were told it was a little girl’s birthday one of the soldiers asked to be able to meet the girl and give her a present.  The family agreed and he went inside.  Within a few days the family began receiving threats for being collaborators with the Americans.  These threats were in a context of widespread kidnappings, killings and forced expulsions in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq.  The family saw no choice but to leave Iraq.  The father made his way to Sweden where he was granted asylum.  The mother and daughters are living with an extended family member in Amman and are hoping to be granted asylum in Sweden as well.

Waadallih Malki Elias, 44, had a small contracting business in Baghdad with his cousin.  Seven months ago his cousin was kidnapped and held for ransom.  Before a ransom could be arranged the cousin was fortuitously freed during a military raid in the area in which he was being held.  Waadallih soon began receiving phone calls from the kidnappers saying they had made a mistake when they captured his cousin, intending rather to kidnap him.  He was told a ransom was required or they would come for him.  Waadallih decided the risks of staying were too great and left with his wife and two teenage daughters for Amman.  They have been in Amman for about 6 months.  They pay about $220/month rent for an apartment.  His wife has a chronic illness which requires another $100/month for medicines.  They have received a little support from St. Ephraim’s and from Caritas but are mostly on their own.  He, like nearly all Iraqis in Jordan, is not allowed to work and so has no source of income.  They would like to continue their daughter’s education, but Iraqis are rarely admitted into public schools.  Iraqis must pay for private schooling, but Waadallih can’t afford the $450/year student fee.  Waadallih estimates that they have enough money for another 6 months.  When I ask him how they will manage after that, he shrugs and says, “Only God knows.”

There are tens of thousands of Iraqi families in Jordan and Syria with similar stories and there is no foreseeable resolution to their situation.  There is little reason to think that the situation in Iraq will improve in the next 1, 2 or 3 years.  So the 2 million Iraqis living in neighboring countries will not be returning home, voluntarily, anytime soon.  Nor will they be resettled in third countries in numbers that meaningfully address the overall situation.  UNHCR hopes to resettle 20,000 Iraqis this year.  That is less than 1% of the total number of Iraqis in neighboring countries, and less than the number of Iraqis fleeing Iraq to Syria every month (30,000 according to UNHCR).  So one can only assume that large numbers of Iraqis will be staying in Jordan and Syria for the near term.  And as the resources they arrived with continue to be depleted, their situation will become increasingly difficult.

I was in New York at CWS headquarters two weeks ago, and one of my colleagues in the communications department floated the idea of a Middle East diary.  It would provide a space to talk about the partners we work with and people we connect with in the course of our work. 

It would also provide a space to highlight developments of particular concern.  The idea had much to recommend it, and so I agreed to do it.  I suggested that we could launch the diary with a piece about my recent trip to Amman, Jordan, and the situation of Iraqi refugees living there.  But then last week happened--a uniquely bad week of news from a region accustomed to bad news.  I felt I would be remiss to launch this diary without noting some of those events from last week and the concern it raises at CWS for the potential impact on the people that live in Iraq, Lebanon, and the occupied Palestinian Territories. 

Iraq –

On Wednesday two minarets of the Askariya Mosque in Samara, an important Shiite shrine, were brought down by bombing.  The dome of this shrine was bombed in February of last year, unleashing a wave of sectarian killings that continues to the present.  This increased sectarian violence led to the dramatic increase in the number of Iraqis being displaced from their homes, now over 4 million and growing.  In the days following this latest attack there have been reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques, and Baghdad residents fled their homes fearing a repeat of last February’s surge in violence when the shrine’s dome was bombed. 

Lebanon –

The stand-off between the Lebanese military and Fatah Al-Islam militants continued last week at Nahr Al-Bared Palestinian camp near Tripoli with intermittent fighting and civilians continuing to flee the violence.  The 4-week-old conflict is the worst internal Lebanese violence since the civil war ended in 1990.   On Wednesday, there was a dramatic reminder of the ongoing political impasse, with the assassination of Member of Parliament Walid Eido, the 7th anti-Syrian figure in Lebanon assassinated in the past 2½ years.  A friend from Beirut wrote me on Saturday:  “Things are pretty critical back here. No one understands what is going on.  The general atmosphere is very charged.  People are scared and the country is very still. At night a lot of the pubs and restaurants close down. Gemmayze Street (a popular Beirut street) is haunted.”

Gaza –

And Gaza saw dramatic violence and dramatic change.  Since June 9 over 100 Palestinians have been killed and over 500 injured, as Hamas routed Fatah and took over the Gaza strip.  In response President Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the government and declared a state of emergency.  This latest development further raises concerns about the already serious security and humanitarian conditions in Gaza and the West Bank.  I will leave the last word to this Gaza resident:

The darkness has fallen and invaded all of the Gaza Strip. We tried to protest against the war today, but gunmen shot at us when we tried to cross the street. This was a peaceful demonstration to try to get these gunmen to stop killing our future, to stop killing our hope. The darkness has fallen. There are no other words. Gaza is not a place for human beings anymore.