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Iraq's forgotten refugees forced to live in a cemetery

Children play in the cemetery of Inkawa village in Kurdistan, Iraq, last week. They are members of a Christian family that fled violence-plagued Baghdad to live in a small hut in the cemetery. More than 3,500 Christian families have fled to Kurdistan after receiving threats. PHOTO: AFP

"We don't have any choice," says a squatter gesturing to the new home he has made for his family in a Christian cemetery in Iraqi Kurdistan, after fleeing violence-plagued Baghdad.

"We are afraid of the snakes and scorpions, especially with the children, but it's better than sleeping without a roof," says Imad Matti who has just moved his wife and children into the Inkawa necropolis outside the Kurdish regional capital of Arbil.

Iraq and the rest of the world are rightly worried about Shiite and Sunni Muslims forced to flee their homes around the country because of raging communal violence.

But the exodus of Christians from the capital, which Kurdish officials say has seen 70 families arrive in Inkawa in recent weeks, has not received the same attention.

The families cite the same dire situation in Baghdad, where threats from armed groups and attacks on businesses from drinks shops to hairdressing salons are rife.

Now Matti lives in a room that was previously the cemetery watchman's hut, while nearby Haval Emmanuel's family has improvised their home in adobe among the tombs.

"Living in an adobe hut in oil-rich Iraq," says Emmanuel, observing the irony of his family's predicament. "But as difficult as the conditions are we accept them -- because we can't endanger the lives of our loved ones."

But Christian leaders are reluctant to speak out about the problems faced by their congregations.

It was the Arab League's representative in the war-torn country, Mokhtar Lamani of Morocco, who drew attention to a problem which he said affected all of Iraq's religious minorities, not just Christians.

"During a recent visit to Kurdistan, I found out that all members of the Mandaean community in Baghdad ... have asked for mass migration to the region," Lamani said.

The Mandaeans, followers of a monotheistic religion which reveres John the Baptist but does not recognize Jesus, Mohammed or Moses, once lived mainly in southern Iraq and neighboring Iran but many fled to Baghdad after Saddam Hussein suppressed a Shiite uprising in the marshlands in the early 1990s.

Lamani said that 3,500 Christian families who had received threats had also fled the capital for the relative safety of Kurdistan.

The sudden influx of Christians to Inkawa has made it increasingly difficult for families of modest means to rent accommodation. A two-room apartment now costs at least US$500 a month, with more spacious properties costing double.

Kurdish authorities give some families US$100 a month, but that is not enough for Imad Matti to rent a home.

Mazen Francis has an apartment, thanks to getting his son to work in the blacksmith's he has just opened rather than sending him to school.

Other families share a single apartment, while demand for even meagre homes from Inkawa estate agents remains high in the town of 30,000, almost all Christians.

"Three to six heads of families come here every day looking for lodging, and it's more and more difficult to find something for them," says estate agent Kameran Matti.
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