Nothing to go back to, no place of their own

A 2nd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division soldier watches over the streets of Chirkuk on Saturday. Chirkuk is one of 33 squatters villages – which the army calls “internally displaced persons clusters” – in Baghdad’s Kadimiyah district. Sectarian fighting forced those in Chirkuk from their former homes. But unlike many other IDPs, they don’t own property in their old neighborhoods and have nowhere to return.


Nothing to go back to, no place of their own
By James Warden, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, January 25, 2009

BAGHDAD — Jabar Abu Abdullah once had a good job — guarding a farm in Sab al Bor — and a trailer to live in.

But like many Iraqis, he fled his home four years ago when sectarian fighting broke out. Now, unlike those countrymen who are returning to their old neighborhoods as the violence subsides, Abdullah remains in the Baghdad slum of Chirkuk, operating a closet-sized general store.

“I don’t own anything, so I can’t go back,” he said.

Most reports on Iraqis who fled sectarian fighting have focused on those who want to reclaim their homes. Yet masses of displaced Iraqis have no homes to return to, and no desire to return to the areas where they once lived.

They’ve settled illegally on government land, built homes out of whatever was handy and refuse to move on. While the Iraqi government has had widespread success resettling those with homes, this group of internally displaced people, or IDP, is proving to be an altogether different problem. Baghdad province itself has an estimated 100,000 squatters.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=60231



uhc comment: Isn't it great we can put a label on Iraqis who are homeless? IDP has a nice :sarcasm: ring. Perhaps we could think of a name for 25% of Americans who are homeless - at the moment they are called veterans.