“All of our people are sleeping on the streets,” Omar Rahimi told Rudaw English in a telephone interview on Sunday. “A lot of people are dying. We really need blankets, tents and water.”
He along with employees he works with through HireARefegee.ca, an online platform he co-founded providing job opportunities to newly arrived refugees in Manitoba have launched an
online fundraiser.A 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck the Iran-Kurdistan Region border last Sunday evening. At least 436 people were killed in Iran and over 7,800 injured.
Rahimi said the aid being delivered is not enough.
“There are not enough tents, not enough blankets. The tents are not in good shape, there’s wind, there’s rain. Mud is everywhere,” he said. “What kind of life is it to live in a tent?”
Night time temperatures in the mountains are dipping down to near freezing.
Rahimi and his wife still have several family members living in Sarpol-e Zahab. His wife’s uncle was killed when his house came down on top of him during the earthquake.
Several other Kurds in Manitoba have lost family members as well.
“We want the Iranian government to help them and to let the other Kurdish parts come and help,” Rahimi said.
Iran has refused international offers of aid during the initial emergency phase, though the Iranian Red Crescent has said it would welcome assistance at a later time. Rahimi wishes all borders would be opened to aid as Kurds want to help each other.
Out of three official land gates between the Kurdistan Region and Iran, only one is open due to the tensions between the Iraqi and Kurdish governments in the wake of the Kurdish independence vote.
“The Kurds in Iraq are very, very generous people because for many years, the Kurds in Iran helped the Kurds in Iraq,” he said. “Now, they want to return the favor, but the borders are closed so they have a hard time.”
The Kurdish population has complained that Iranian authorities are slow in delivering aid – or not delivering it all. Much of the assistance – water and food – that they have received has come from volunteers.
Rahimi, who immigrated to Canada in 2001, said that the Kurdish community in Sarpol-e Zahab is suffering greatly.
“The Kurdish people are suffering already and on top of that, an earthquake hit them. Now, what are they going to do? They were already poor, they were already refugees, and now a very bad earthquake hit them,” he said.
“The government of Iran is not helping its own people,” he added.
Rahimi said the Kurdish community in Manitoba feels sad and frustrated because they are not near their families to help them.
“I hope that the international community will do something,” he pleaded.
Rahimi said he was contacted by members of HireARefugee.ca to help in raising money for their families in Iran through a GoFundMe campaign.
“Right now, Sarpol-e Zahab is the most important thing for us, for me and for my family,” he said.
“We want to bring their voice out because they are not free in Iran. They are not allowed to talk on Facebook, they are not allowed to go on YouTube. They have no voice,” Rahimi said. “We have to be their voice so that the Kurds in Iraq and the world can see more of what’s happening, because Iran blocks everything.”
Rahimi said that all of the money raised through the campaign will be sent to Sarpol-e Zahab through the Kurdish Association of Manitoba.
So far, the campaign has raised $5,633 of their $30,000 goal.
“The disaster in this region is unbelievable,” stated the Kurdistan Human Rights Association. The organization has also claimed that Iran has blocked dissemination of news from some areas so the full scale of the situation cannot be estimated yet.
Some 1,900 villages and seven cities in Kermanshah province have been affected, according to figures from Iran’s Interior Ministry. Twelve thousand houses were completely demolished and another 15,000 need repairs, said a construction official, Azizullah Mahdiani.
Sarpol-e Zahab is one of the worst-affected cities hit by the earthquake.
