KALAR, Kurdistan Region – An hour after giving birth in Iraq’s war-torn Anbar province, 16-year-old Heyan Hussein was bundled into a vehicle with her newborn baby and whisked north to the city of Kalar in the Kurdistan Region, the only peaceful portion of Iraq which has become a last haven for tens of thousands of refugees from all parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria.
“I left the city of Fallujah (in Anbar) 15 days ago, one hour after my son was born,” the teenager said, clutching her baby as she stood in line with her parents at a food distribution carried out by two foreign non-governmental organization (NGO). “My husband is still there with his own parents. There was no room for him to come with us,” she explained.
Hussein stressed that the Iraqi government was not differentiating between civilians and the terrorists they are fighting, a sentiment echoed by many who were displaced by the instability in Anbar.
Fighting in Anbar between Iraqi security forces and the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has continued since the militants seized control of government buildings in the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi a few days after the New Year.
With no end in sight, the fighting has forced tens of thousands of civilians to flee for safety, the largest displacement since the 2003 US-led invasion that unleashed waves of violence that continue to this day. The numbers weigh heavily on an already precarious Iraq and pose enormous challenges for Iraqi authorities as well as foreign and local NGOs.
The instability also is continuing to spread into other provinces, namely Salaheddin, which has become a hotspot for terrorist activity. A March 6 report issued by the United Nations notes that 62, 079 families have been displaced from Anbar because of the latest fighting.
At the end of February, more than 5,300 of those families had sought refuge in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. However, recent information obtained by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) notes that some families are leaving Kurdistan because they cannot afford the high cost of living.
As the numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs) increase, so to do their needs.
Last week, the UNHCR and Save the Children (STC) coordinated a distribution of basic relief items and food packages for the IDPs in Kalar, a city in Kurdistan’s Sulaimani province. Around 300 families from Anbar have arrived in Kalar since January.
Ali Mohammed, a carpet merchant from Fallujah, explained how his family arrived at the difficult decision to leave.
“We were very close to the fighting, but it wasn’t until a shell hit our neighborhood four houses down that we decided to go. We arrived here January 7,” Ali said after arriving back to his new home from the distribution.
This is the second time that Ali, his wife Batool and their six children have been displaced: In 2004, violence in Fallujah forced them to seek safety in a different part of Anbar.
Ali said they came to Kalar because of the past ties with Anbar. In the 1980s IDPs from Kalar, escaping one of Saddam Hussein’s many brutal crackdowns on the Kurds, sought refuge in Anbar. Approximately 30 years later, the flow of IDPs has reversed and the historic relationship is now leading the displaced to Kalar.
Kahin Ismail, head of UNHCR’s Sulaimani office, noted that this historic link was a common reason given by IDPs for choosing Kalar when the needs assessment was conducted the week prior to the distribution. STC also conducted a needs assessment to determine what the IDPs required the most.
Forced to abandon everything, the IDPs arrived in Kalar with nothing. Most are asking for cash assistance to help with the costs of rent, food, medicine and visits to the doctor.
“We left everything behind and ran with only the clothes on our backs. We have nothing. Our basic needs are food and money,” said Jama Khalifa Hamadi, who fled Anbar’s Al-Khaldiya district along with his five sons and their families -- 23 members altogether.
Most of the IDPs in Kalar have rented small houses, where multiple families are living together to split the high cost of rent.
The Kurdistan Region is experiencing an incredible economic boom, with property and rent prices going through the roof.
Salah Abdullah, who fled Fallujah less than a month ago, said he was forced to sell his daughter’s gold ring in the bazaar to pay for his family’s first month of rent. Abdullah did not know how they would scrounge together the money to pay rent the following month.
“We don’t need much, just enough to live a simple life,” he said.
The UNHCR supplied items such as mattresses, blankets, basic kitchen supplies and jerry cans to help the IDP’s settle in their new homes. Because the UNHCR does not have a mandate for IDPs, different agencies pitched in to come up with the funding for the relief packages.
The distribution was the first time Anbar IDPs have received assistance in Sulaimani province. The UNHCR’s Ismail said distributions were also planned for Chamchamal and New Halabja.
STC’s Logistics and IT Coordinator Ibrahim Khalili said that a more thorough needs assessment was being conducted during the distribution to re-evaluate the IDPs’ needs before the next distribution.
A food package from STC for a family of five contained rice, oil, sugar, tea, tomato paste and dried chickpeas. Families over five members received two packages.
Iraq’s Ministry of Displacement and Migration has put in a request to the Council of Ministries to allocate 50 billion Iraqi Dinars (US$ 41.2 million) to help support IDPs both within and outside Anbar province.
On March 5, an appeal was made by the UN for $103 million to fund the response effort in Anbar. The money will be used to help people who are still trapped in the fighting and to assist the Iraqi government provide food, shelter, protection and healthcare to IDPs.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has also reached out to provide support and is currently collaborating with aid agencies to establish a temporary camp for IDPs from Anbar.
KRG authorities have appealed for international help to cope with some 250,000 mostly-Kurdish refugees from Syria, in addition to tens of thousands of IDPs pouring in to escape the violence from other parts of Iraq.
