Around 120,000 internally displaced people are currently
living in camps in Dohuk governorate.
19 December 2014
A lack of coordination and major gaps in humanitarian assistance is causing untold hardship for many of the 900,000 people displaced by the conflict in Iraq who are sheltering in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), said Amnesty International.
Delegates from
the organization who have just returned from a visit to the KRI found that many
displaced people lacked basic items they need to survive the winter such as
blankets, warm clothes and heating.
Thousands are living in poorly equipped camps or informal settlements in
dire conditions.
“There are
shocking gaps in the humanitarian response. As a result, scores of people are
living in ill-equipped camps or buildings with no walls and no shelter from the
cold, wind or rain. Children are running around in thin clothes in the freezing
cold. In some camps, toilets and clean water are inadequate. In some non-camp
settings they are lacking entirely. As winter continues the situation is likely
to get far worse,” said Khairunissa Dhala, Refugee Rights Advisor at Amnesty
International.
“The
international community and Kurdistan Regional Government must urgently make
concerted efforts to ensure assistance to those sheltering inside or outside of
camps in order to avert a fully-fledged humanitarian disaster.”
The Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG) has made some efforts to provide emergency
accommodation and services to those displaced. However the response by the
international community has been slow and overall, humanitarian assistance is
not sufficient to meet the essential needs of displaced people.
Funding
shortfalls are severe. The United Nation’s (UN) 2014-2015 Strategic Response
Plan for Iraq has only been 33 per cent funded. The portion of the budget
covering shelter and other basic items has so far only been 23 per cent funded.
Several UN projects are currently funded only until March 2015.
“With little
prospect for the displaced to return home soon, better funding, planning and
coordination are needed to properly support those suffering the most,” said Khairunissa
Dhala.
Shelter
Around
120,000 internally displaced people are currently living in 12 camps run by
humanitarian agencies or the KRG in Dohuk governorate. However, the camps’
capacity is insufficient to host the whole IDP population. The majority are
scattered in hundreds of informal settlements in building sites, community
centres and other locations. Others are in private accommodation.
The standards
of accommodation, facilities and services vary greatly from one camp to
another. In Bersive I, a camp hosting about 10,000 people, the tents are not
fully insulated from the rain, there is no hot water and the number of toilets
and showers available does not meet minimum humanitarian standards. The poor
conditions in several camps have discouraged some of the displaced to seek
shelter elsewhere.
Amnesty
International also visited informal settlements in Dairaboun and Zawita and
found aid shortages and a critical lack of sanitation facilities.
According to
the UN around 40 per cent of the displaced population in Dohuk governorate live
in construction sites and unfinished buildings. The majority of these lack
walls, windows or doors leaving those inside exposed to the cold, wind and
rain. They have no heating, water or sanitation facilities. Amnesty
International has also confirmed cases of children falling from the buildings
and getting killed or seriously injured as a result.
Many families
sheltering in such buildings told Amnesty International that they would not
have survived without the good will of the host community. They had not
received any other assistance in months However, the strain on the host
community is beginning to show. Some private owners told Amnesty International
that they wanted displaced people to leave their sites, in order to complete
construction.
Khani, a
22-year-old woman who lives in the basement of an unfinished building with six
other families, is among those who have been asked to leave. They have no water
or gas and have a heater provided by a charity. “We need more clothes and
blankets. That’s our priority right now,” she said.
While the KRG
has made efforts to move those in unfinished buildings to the camps, the
government does not seem to have considered alternative solutions, such as
finding suitable accommodation in non-camp settings.
“Anyone who
has found themselves homeless after fleeing the spiralling violence in Iraq has
the right to safe, warm, adequate shelter. This is particularly urgent as
winter has started. No one should be evicted from their place of shelter if
they don’t have anywhere else to go. The KRG authorities must work with the UN
and other humanitarian organizations to ensure that IDPs have adequate
shelter,” said Khairunissa Dhala.
Access to
education
There are an
estimated 252,000 school aged children (between the ages of six and 17)
displaced in the Kurdistan region. Very few of the children whose families
Amnesty International spoke to in both camp and non-camp settings are going to
school. With many camps lacking schools, some families cannot afford to pay for
transport; in other cases families need their children to work in order to
survive. Some parents stated that children who had previously studied the
Arabic curriculum taught in the rest of Iraq were unable to follow the Kurdish
curriculum.
“Education must
be one of the top priorities for the humanitarian response to the crisis. These
children have already lost their homes, they must not be denied their right to
education,” said Khairunissa Dhala.
Amnesty
International is also calling on the authorities together with the UN and other
humanitarian organizations to improve registration of all those who have been
internally displaced in order to ensure that their needs and vulnerabilities
are properly assessed.
Background
Since the
beginning of 2014, more than two million Iraqis have been displaced by ongoing
violence across the country. The Kurdistan region hosts 48 per cent of the
total displaced population, an estimated 946,266 individuals.
Since January
2014 the Kurdistan region experienced three waves of internal displacement, as
a result of the military advances of the armed group calling itself the Islamic
State (IS). The first wave occurred after IS forces gained parts of the Anbar
governorate in December 2013-January 2014, causing local families
(predominantly Sunni Arabs) to flee. The second wave of displacement took place
in June-July 2014, following the takeover by IS of towns and villages in
northern Iraq (most notably Mosul), forcibly displacing hundreds of thousands
of people, including many belonging to religious and ethnic minorities. The
third wave took place following the IS takeover of the Sinjar area, in the
north-west of Iraq, on 3 August, which displaced hundreds of thousands of
residents, most of them from the Yezidi minority group.
With a
population of around 5 million, the Kurdistan region has been hosting around
230,000 Syrian refugees in addition to the IDPs.
No comments:
Post a Comment