U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 1998 - Iraq
There were roughly 110,000 refugees and 900,000 internally displaced persons in Iraq in 1997. Known refugees in Iraq in 1997 included about 34,200 from Iran and 10,800 from Turkey‹in both cases, mostly Kurds. The total also included some 64,000 Palestinians refugees and about 1,000 refugees of other nationalities. Factional fighting among the Kurds in the north, particularly in the last three months of the year, and Turkish incursions into northern Iraq in May and September, internally displaced, at least temporarily, 30,000 to 100,000 people. Another 500,000 long-term internally displaced people remained in the three northern governorates of Dohuk, Erbil, and Suleymaniyah. In addition, the Baghdad regime continued its systematic campaign to forcibly expel Kurds and Turkomans from Kirkuk and surrounding areas in 1997, displacing thousands of people. There were also a large number of internally displaced persons in the marshlands in southeastern Iraq, likely numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The international community maintained economic sanctions against Iraq for the eighth year. The UN Security Council's oil-for-food deal, an attempt to provide humanitarian exceptions to its sanctions, did not avert a humanitarian crisis. Under Resolution 986, the Security Council allowed Iraq to sell $2.14 billion in oil every six months, provided that 65 percent of profits were spent on humanitarian supplies, 30 percent on war reparations, and 5 percent on funding UN weapons inspectors. In April, WFP announced it would reduce its emergency caseload from 2,150,000 to 688,000, anticipating that the oil-for-food arrangement would increase food supplies. But Iraqi and UN officials squabbled about implementing the oil-for-food deal, impeding food delivery. The Iraqis suspended oil pumping between June 8 and August 13 and from December 5 through the end of the year. Although food imports improved by December, food distribution and quality remained problems. Chronic shortages of medicine, educational supplies, and electricity (affecting sanitation and clean water) also persisted. In October, WFP and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) jointly reported that the Iraqi food ration system was unbalanced and not capable of reversing the consequences of the food shortages. A UNICEF nutritional survey in November indicated that 32 percent of Iraqi children under the age of five, about 960,000 children, were chronically malnourished. A World Health Organization (WHO) survey in November found that only 39 percent of patients who had been prescribed drugs had received all of them.
(On February 20, 1998, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1153, which more than doubled from $2.14 billion to $5.2 billion the amount of oil Iraq is permitted to export every six months to pay for humanitarian goods, reparations, and weapons inspections.) Internal Displacement, Central Iraq In 1997, Baghdad intensified its systematic efforts to "Arabize" the predominantly Kurdish cities of Kirkuk, Khanaqin, and Douz at the edge of government-controlled Iraq near the Kurdish-controlled zone. To solidify control of this strategically and economically vital oil-rich region, the government expelled Kurds, Assyrians, and Turkomans‹at times, entire communities‹from these cities and surrounding areas. At the same time, it offered financial and housing incentives to Sunni Arabs to persuade them to move to Kirkuk and other cities targeted for Arabization. Most expellees moved north to the Kurdish-controlled governorates where they had relatives and the support of sympathetic persons sharing the same language and culture. To do this, however, they paid an additional price‹those going north were not allowed to take their belongings with them. Given the brief time before expulsion, few victims of internal deportation could sell their properties and belongings before leaving, or receive a fair price for them. The few who opted to move to predominantly Shi'ite southern Iraq were allowed to take their belongings. Some expellees moved to the city of al-Ramadi to the west of Baghdad, although it is not clear whether the choice of al-Ramadi was voluntary. Officials of the ruling Ba'ath Party implemented the government's Arabization policy in Kirkuk and other cities, maintaining lists of neighborhood residents by ethnicity. According to the special rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights, Ba'ath Party members typically confiscate targeted families' identification documents and order them to vacate their homes and leave the vicinity within 48 hours. Often a family member is detained at a local police station during this time. When the family is ready to leave, they must report to the police station to fill in a form saying that they are leaving voluntarily. Then, the officials release the detained relative to the family and return their identity documents. In the past, the authorities issued expulsion certificates ordering people to vacate their homes. However, the special rapporteur noted that the authorities stopped issuing such certificates "when they learned that the document was being used by asylum seekers outside Iraq as proof of their claims." Methods of expropriation also reportedly include demolishing villages and seizing food ration cards. The special rapporteur said that the first to be targeted for internal deportation were families of political prisoners and executed persons. Although it was difficult to find a credible estimate of the number of internal expulsions in 1997, reports indicated that large numbers were involved. On April 2, the Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported that 1,500 persons were expelled from Khanaqin and 80 families from Kirkuk. The authorities prevented the expellees from going north. With no relatives to accommodate them, most reportedly took shelter in mosques to the south of Baghdad. On May 13, the Iraqi authorities allegedly ordered another 1,300 Kurdish and Turkoman families to leave Kirkuk, first stripping them of their ration cards and the titles to their properties. In the last week of August, another 440 Kurdish families were reportedly expelled from Jalula and Qara-Tepa, towns to the west of Khanaqin. On November 20, another 174 Kurdish families, representing 1,129 persons, were reportedly evicted from Kirkuk. Formal evictions formed one part of a larger pattern of persecution against minorities. The special rapporteur observed that it was "highly probable" that the Iraqi government had carried out more than 1,500 summary or politically motivated extrajudicial executions in 1997, and that "ethnic minorities continue to be especially at risk." Lists of executed prisoners received by the special rapporteur included at least 29 Turkomans and at least 27 Kurds, most of whom were killed in November and December. Shi'ite Arabs from the southern marsh area also represented a large percentage of persons executed during the year.
Northern Iraq Many residents of northern Iraq have been displaced multiple times. In recent years, including 1997, people often fled their homes temporarily during flare-ups of fighting and returned shortly thereafter. Thus, estimating the number of displaced people becomes highly speculative. The UN Center for Human Settlements (UNCHS-HABITAT) estimates that more than 1 million people (out of a population of 3 million) have been internally displaced in the three northern governorates during the past five years. The UN secretary general reported in 1997 that about half of the 500,000 people displaced in northern Iraq left their homes before 1991, that 150,000 became displaced between 1991 and 1995, and that 100,000 were displaced in 1996. During 1997, both Turkey and Iran violated the "safe haven zone" in northern Iraq‹established in 1991 by the United States, Britain, and France. Fighting between the two major Iraqi Kurdish factions‹Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)‹as well as the Workers Party of Kurdistan (PKK), which is waging a separatist war in southeastern Turkey‹magnified the scope of internal displacement. In mid-May, Turkish forces launched a six-week military offensive against the PKK. Some 10,000 Turkish troops, backed by war planes and tanks, crossed into the autonomous region. Most of the fighting took place in the Zab region, the PKK's main base. The Iraqi PUK, however, reported that Turkish air strikes also hit in PUK-held territory along the eastern border. Although Ankara announced a troop withdrawal in July, reports of Turkish military attacks in northern Iraq continued in August. In July, the KDP reportedly agreed with Ankara to help finance the rehabilitation of about 400 abandoned villages along the border with Turkey. The KDP indicated that if Iraqi Kurds were allowed to return to these villages‹depopulated during the "Anfal" campaign of the mid-1980s‹the KDP would be able to prevent the PKK from operating in the area. During the year, Turkey and the KDP forged a de facto alliance, and both accused the PUK of being allied with the PKK and allowing the PKK to use bases in northern Iraq to launch attacks on Turkey. In return, Iran, which has supported the PUK, condemned Turkey's military operations in northern Iraq and held Ankara responsible for causing refugee flight toward and across the Iranian border. A second Turkish incursion, backed by the KDP faction, took place in late September. Again, Turkish troops targeted PKK bases in the Zab area. An estimated 15,000 Turkish soldiers and more than 100 tanks and armored vehicles crossed the border and occupied the provincial capital of Dohuk. They also sealed a crossing point between Syria and northern Iraq, alleging that Syria gave sanctuary to the PKK. Western aid workers in northern Iraq called the fighting the worst there since Baghdad's 1988 Anfal campaign against the Kurds. During this time, Iraqi military forces expanded their presence significantly along the northern no-fly zone. Western aid workers reported in November that the Iraqi army deployed tens of thousands of soldiers on the Mosul-Kirkuk line and around the Kus Tepe refugee camp near Erbil. These troop movements instilled in the border population a fear of military attack. A U.S.-brokered cease-fire collapsed in October, causing further internal displacement. The regions of Shaqlawa, Choman, and Degala saw several weeks of fierce fighting. During that time, observers sighted Turkish tanks within 30 km of the northern capital, Erbil. When fighting resumed in October, the UN temporarily suspended relief aid in the north. The UN said the Turkish incursion in October alone displaced at least 10,000 Kurds. At year's end, WFP added to its assistance rolls another 20,000 persons displaced by Kurdish factional fighting. Landmines made northern Iraq particularly dangerous and impeded displaced persons from returning to their homes. At the end of 1997, the special rapporteur estimated that since 1992, landmines had caused more than 15,000 casualties in Iraq, mostly in the north, and that about 30 percent of the victims were children.
Shi'ites in Southern Iraq The Iraqi government has long been openly hostile to the Marsh Arabs, or Maadan, people living in the marshlands between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in a triangle-shaped region formed by the cities of Amarah, Basrah, and Nasseriyah. Following the suppression of the 1991 Shi'ite uprising in southern Iraq, many opponents of the Baghdad regime fled to the marshes, and the Iraqi government intensified a pacification campaign it had been directing toward the Maadan since 1989. Since 1991, government forces have burned and shelled villages, and built dams to divert water from the marshes to depopulate the area. The special rapporteur reported that Iraq denied food rations to thousands of Marsh Arabs (often whole villages), in violation of Security Council Resolution 986. Many other Maadan received no humanitarian assistance because they would not or could not register their identities and location with the Iraqi authorities because they feared persecution. During 1997, Iraqi government forces continued to attack Shi'ite civilians in the marshlands in southern Iraq, divert natural waterways in the marshlands, and force the Shi'ites to move north. Despite the theoretical protection of the UN-imposed no-fly zone, artillery attacks in the Nasseriyah Governorate in April and May 1997 inflicted heavy damage on the towns of Al-Ghizlan, Al-Tar, and Souq Al-Sheeukh, causing unknown casualties and displacement. Women and children of the Bani Sa'id clan were reportedly killed in Al-Ghizlan, where 50 houses were set on fire. During that same time, artillery attacks caused substantial civilian casualties and unknown displacement in towns and civilian settlements in Amarah Governorate. Whole families in the region have reportedly been arrested and disappeared. In the first week of April 1997, government forces allegedly barricaded Um al-Ghizlan village in the area of the Bani Sa'id clan, arresting large numbers of civilians and torching selected houses. Security forces took at least 40 women, children, and elderly men under guard to Baghdad. They were never heard from again. Independent sources, however, could not document either the number of newly displaced Marsh Arabs or the cumulative total since 1989. Estimates of the number of displaced and at-risk Maadan ranged from 40,000 to 1,000,000.
Refugees from Turkey By year's end, 10,828 Kurdish refugees from Turkey were in Iraq, a drop from the 14,000 in Iraq in January. At the beginning of 1997, the refugees were mostly in the controversial Atrush camp, about 65 km from the Turkish border. Since Atrush opened in March 1994, Turkey charged that the camp sheltered PKK guerrillas. In December 1996, UNHCR terminated assistance to Atrush, saying that the humanitarian and nonpolitical nature of the camp had been compromised. In January 1997, responding to criticism that it was abandoning the refugees at Atrush and coercing them to repatriate to Turkey, UNHCR said that it would assist individual refugees who left the camp but who decided to remain in northern Iraq rather than return to Turkey. During the year, 6,865 former Atrush residents moved into the Ain Sufni area, close to the Shaikhan checkpoint marking the separation of Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq from Iraqi government-controlled territory. UNHCR assisted about 4,000 others in 19 local settlements. From July 1996, when the repatriation program began, through the end of 1997, UNHCR registered 1,171 Kurds repatriating to Turkey from Iraq, of whom 835 came from Atrush. Late in the year, UNHCR reported that financial constraints forced it to reduce its assistance for Turkish refugees in northern Iraq. This intensified already tense relations between the refugees and UNHCR. Earlier in the year, the refugees had refused UNHCR assistance, and demanded to be allowed to move farther east, to Suleymaniyah Governorate. At year's end, Shaikhan reportedly had inadequate food and medicine, and many refugees reportedly suffered from digestive and respiratory ailments.
Refugees from Iran The number and situation of Iranian refugees in Iraq did not change significantly in 1997. The official UNHCR figure for all Iranian refugees residing in Iraq stood at 34,247 at year's end. Of these, 20,787 were at the Al-Tash camp in western Iraq, about 150 km from Baghdad. In Al-Tash, described as a slum, refugees were not permitted to work, and their movement was also restricted. In addition to these, an estimated 3,700 Iranian Kurdish refugees resided in northern Iraq. The majority were believed to be
ex-peshmergas of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran. Approximately 9,000 Iranian ethnic Arabs (Ahwazis) were living in local settlements in the governorates of Wasit and Misan. Third countries resettled 1,616 Iranian refugees in 1997; another 799 resettlement cases were pending at year's end. No Iranian refugees officially repatriated in 1997, and few refugees were reported to have left the Al-Tash camp spontaneously. Turkey deported at least 108 Iranian refugees and asylum seekers to Iraq in 1997. Most had been politically active in groups opposed to the Iranian government and had traveled through northern Iraq before reaching Turkey. Although UNHCR recognized 69 of them as refugees and considered the other 39 to be "of concern," Turkey denied their asylum claims, arguing that they were safe in northern Iraq. The Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran repeatedly alleged that Iranian government agents attacked its members in northern Iraq. Allegations ranged from assassinations to air strikes. Iranian residents at the Bazan camp claimed that Iranian agents poisoned their drinking water. Refugees associated with other Iranian opposition groups also approached UNHCR officers in Erbil and Suleymaniyah, expressing fear of Iranian agents in northern Iraq.
Other Groups Approximately 65,000 refugees of other nationalities were in Iraq in 1997, about 64,000 of whom were Palestinians. Information on their living conditions was not available. Little is known about the circumstances of some 100,000 stateless Arabs from Kuwait, called Bidoon, who were expelled from Kuwait into Iraq after the Gulf War.
Repatriation from Iran Some 8,300 Iraqi Kurds repatriated with UNHCR assistance from Iran in 1997. As of December 1997, more than 500,000 Iraqi refugees still resided in Iran. In August, the governments of Iran and Iraq resumed talks on the exchange of prisoners of war from the Iran-Iraq War, which began in 1980 and ended in 1988. The war cost an estimated million lives on each side. Baghdad charged that more than 20,000 Iraqi POWs were still held in Iran. Tehran, in turn, claimed that 5,000 to 10,000 Iranian POWs were still being held on Iraqi territory. In December, Iran released about 500 POWs, all of whom had been held for at least ten years. International observers feared that Iraq was considering forcibly repatriating Iranians other than POWs as part of the POW exchange agreement, some of whom might fear persecution if returned, and that many of the 4,000 Iranian POWs in Iraq might not want to return home. (Iraq also reportedly still held 651 Kuwaiti POWs in 1997.)
Repatriation from Saudi Arabia UNHCR recorded only ten Iraqi refugees repatriating from the Rafha camp in Saudi Arabia in 1997. In October, the special rapporteur reported that the Iraqi authorities allegedly arrested ten refugees who returned from Saudi Arabia in mid-May. The ten, imprisoned for 15 days, were allegedly tortured and forced to eat suspect food. Upon release, all ten reportedly experienced hair loss, bleeding, and paralysis before finally dying.
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