BAHARKA CAMP, Erbil - Ibrahim Mahmoud Fahmahy is twice a refugee. The elderly Palestinian fled Haifa in what is now Israel in 1948 and eventually ended up in Mosul. Almost four months ago he had to leave after Islamic State (ISIS) militants overran and occupied Iraq’s second-largest city.
“This group, they are against everyone and everything in the name of religion,” he said, referring to Daesh, the name for ISIS that is widely used in the region. “They told everyone to either join them or be killed. We decided to leave.”
Fahmahy, his wife and son ended up in Baharka Camp, which opened on the outskirts of the Kurdish regional capital Erbil during the summer to cope with an influx of refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs).
Some 750 families, or 3,300 people, live in rows of tents and the logos of aid organizations such UNHCR, Unicef, and BCF, the local Barzani Charity Foundation, are emblazoned everywhere.
The Palestinians in Iraq have been objects of suspicion among Iraqis in the past because of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s close ties with the Saddam Hussein regime. This was particularly so after Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990 and Yasser Arafat, then PLO leader, decided to side with the Iraqi dictator.
After the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, other Iraqis accused the Palestinians of currying favor with Hussein at their expense.
The Iraqi authorities in Mosul failed to give Fahmahy and his family any Iraqi identification papers, but they have since registered as Palestinian refugees with UNHCR at Baharka.
Thamir Ibrahim, another Palestinian who came to visit Fahmahy in his tent, said hostility from Arab Iraqis started rising about a year ago. Arab customers would refuse to pay the barber for their haircuts, would abuse him for being a Palestinian, and one even fought and tried to shoot him.
“We knew about a year before Daesh took over that things were going bad in Mosul and that our lives were in danger,” says Ibrahim. “I want to leave Iraq completely and go anywhere. My life is finished but I want my children to have a better life.”
Fahmahy rubbed his eyes and sighed as his wife, Khadira Zedan Musa Kharoubi, said she dreaded the onset of winter. “The water is already cold when we shower. What will happen when it’s freezing outside? How will we manage?”
Their tent is hooked up to electricity, allowing a fan and lights to operate. But it was hard to imagine how the flimsy rugs covering the ground would fare in the winter.
Aid organizations are preparing to cover the tents with plastic and distribute blankets but have little to prevent the hard-baked earth turning into a sea of mud when the rains come.
Of the 1.8 million Iraqi IDPs estimated by the United Nations to have fled violence and unrest since January, the Kurdistan Region received nearly half. They are in addition to the more than 200,000 IDPs take in since 2003 and more than 200,000 refugees from Syria.
The Palestinians along with the thousands of others who have sought haven in the Kurdistan Region had little to celebrate during Eid over the last couple of days. The BCF and ordinary people have donated beef, lamb and goat meat for the displaced.
“People are used to eating meat during Eid. I feel so sorry for these people and that’s why I wanted to donate something,” said Sherzad, who brought two goats to the Hawler Modern Slaughterhouse in Erbil.
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