IRAQ UPDATE: 1-22 August 2010

On team during this period were Marius van Hoogstraten, David Hovde, Garland
Robertson, Chihchun Yuan

The Displaced People (IDPs) in Zharawa
In June, a wave of people returned to the IDP tent camp in Bastesan.  At the beginning of August, many
families left the camp again.  Ten
families remained in the tents, most of them women.  Team members visited the area each week and families told
them that they were still hoping to build houses in the tent campsite.  If the bombing continued to happen in
the village, they said, their families would have a place to stay while waiting
for the bombing to stop.

Mrs. Gula, a woman injured in a May bombing attack, was recovering.  She told the team that before she had
surgery, the police asked her if she was sure that Iranian shelling caused her
wounds.  After the surgery, instead
of sending her home, the authorities sent her by ambulance to the
court.  The authorities asked her
to swear in front of the judge that Iranian shelling had inflicted her wounds.  She told them she would not swear
because she was telling truth and everyone knew it.

The team visited the Director of Electricity in Suleimaniya to follow up on the
IDPs’ application.  The Director
said his office did not have money, but the main office in Erbil might have a
budget.  The team followed up on
the case with the main office in Erbil and they were told that the office would
evaluate the situation, but that doing so would take time.

The Displaced People in Sangesar
Ramadan started on 11 August; the families remaining in the three different
camps followed observed the Ramadan fast even in the heat of the tent camp,
which does not have any shade.  The
team asked the authorities what their policies about helping people in Ramadan
were.  The authorities did not have
any answers.  At the end of August,
many displaced people went home because the authorities had not provided
services.  The Iranian military
shelled the area again on 24 August and injured two people.  Then the Iranian military set a huge
fire in the mountains.

The Meeting with Iranian Consul in Erbil
The team visited the Iranian Consulate on 4 August in Erbil.  Mr. Uwzem Mamand told the team that the
conflicts along the border do affect people’s lives but only for a few days at
a time.  People leave their homes,
but very soon after, they go back to their villages.  He never heard of any damage happening or complaints from the
KRG.  He tried to tell the team the
bigger problem is that Western countries are trying to use the border to
support the anti-government groups. 
He said in the past three months, 200 bombs were transported from Iraq
to support the rebel groups in Iran.

The report ” Iraq After Occupation” by Marius van Hoogstraten is now
available online.
https://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2010/09/02/iraq-christian-peacemaker-teams-report-challenges-us-reading-iraq-situation