Displaced Iraqi families risk having their houses bulldozed

Displaced families risk having their houses bulldozed



Displaced families risk having their houses bulldozed

By Mohannad Ali

Azzaman, March 21, 2007

The number of Iraqi families forced to leave their neighborhoods and houses is surging amid continuing sectarian violence.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi families are on the move. Two million Iraqis have fled the country and an estimated 1.5 million more people no longer live in their original quarters.

These external and internal refugees are now among the most vulnerable in the society and some lack the basic essentials like food, clothing or housing.

Hundreds of thousands of houses in major Iraqi cities and towns are either empty or occupied by members of the opposite sect.

Insurgents and rebels often use such houses as hideouts, prompting U.S. and Iraqi troops to destroy many of them.

Mazen al-Shaikhli, who heads a committee working for the return of refugees and displaced families, said conditions on the ground were making it impossible for the majority to come back.

He said the authorities were not paying any attention to the makeshift shanty towns that have sprang up in several areas of Iraq by the displaced families.

Shaikhli said security forces and police attack even these shanty towns and destroy makeshift housing some families constructed using their own meager resources.

“Such policies will most likely turn these families into hostile elements … These families were hoping the new security plan would deliver them from abject poverty … They may have no alternative left but to join the stray path,” he said.

The food rationing program initiated by former leader Saddam Hussein to offset the impact of punitive U.N. trade sanctions is no longer functioning.

The program, which helped millions of Iraqis make ends meet, is now wrought with corruption and food supplies rarely reach the beneficiaries.