Displaced Iraqis are having to establish their own camps, others overflowing.

[madfloridian]

We are responsible for this Iraqi diaspora. We have bombed their cities, called them enemy combatants if they stayed in their homes. Southern Iraq doesn't have much room left.

Southern Iraq Can't Support Any More displaced persons. Turning them away.

BAGHDAD, 12 July 2007 (IRIN) - Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in southern Iraq are concerned about the fate of newly arriving internally displaced persons (IDPs), after the authorities in the southern provinces said they could not cope with any more of them.

They are lacking the bare necessities of life. There was no planning made for this contingency when we invaded their country, though they had not harmed us and were no threat.

Civilians fleeing Baghdad to Najaf....lacking food, water, supplies.

About 9000 Iraqi families fled to the central city most of them from Baghdad, where they search for safety in camps for displaced people according to official sources from Najaf. The sources said that the increasing numbers of displaced people who are converging to the city's camps will soon suffer from a shortage of food and water supplies.

Now they are having to set up makeshift places to live. The last figures I heard were over 2 million. Syria and Jordan are not able to take many either.



AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images
Baghdad, IRAQ: Iraqi displaced children play outside a camp for displaced people in Baghdad's al-Karrada neighbourhood.

With Official IDP Camps Overflowing, Families Rely on Each Other

BABIL, 22 July 2007 (IRIN) - Thousands of Iraqis have been setting up their own improvised displacement camps after fleeing violence in their home areas and being turned away from already overcrowded formal camps.

“We didn’t have a choice,” said Muhammad Bilal, 43, who lives in a makeshift camp on the outskirts of Al Hillah, the capital of Babil province in central Iraq.

“We tried to get support in three camps near the capital, but we were not allowed in by locals who had already settled there. And the local NGO looking after the families said they couldn’t offer the same assistance to us.”

.."Women and children living in informal camps said their lives had improved significantly since moving to a camp.

“Before, we couldn’t even stand in the doorway of our house, scared that a bullet would come our way. Our children were crying every day and never sleeping,” said Um Khudar, 34, a mother of three living in a camp housing up to 370 people on the outskirts of Al Hillah.

“The children are sleeping now, we can sit outside our tents and speak with other people and until now we have food and water donated by some local NGOs. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow, what our destiny is, but at least on some days we can live in a peaceful environment,” she said.

Iraq’s Ministry of Displacement and Migration was worried, though. He said setting up informal camps could bring more violence to peaceful areas. I hope all of those who let this invasion happen see pictures like this. I doubt they will.

We have caused a terrible human tragedy.

[madfloridian]

1. Tomorrow...

I will give this a kick. I think it is important to keep up with the plight of the country we invaded.

I also believe that ending the war is necessary, but not at the expense of tearing down our own progressive Democrats.

But that's all that gets noticed. Only attacks on Dems get noticed.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. "Let Freedom Reign!"

[TahitiNut]

3. Just another U.S. violation of Geneva Conventions regarding occupying military forces.

Our abysmal failure to protect the civilian population after completely eradicating Iraq's police forces and civilian infrastructure is an ongoing war crime.

[madfloridian]

4. Serious question: Are we supposed to call civilians the enemy and target them?

Is there any way that can be construed to be proper?

"....Under threat of a new siege, an estimated 50,000 families or 250,000 people fled Falluja. They fled with the knowledge that they would live as refugees with few or no resources. They left behind fathers, husbands, brothers and sons, as males between the ages of 15 and 45 were denied safe passage out of the city by US-led forces. If the displaced families of Falluja were fortunate, they fled to the homes of relatives in the surrounding towns and villages or to the city of Baghdad -- homes that were already overcrowded and overburdened after 20 months of war and occupation. Many families are forced to survive in fields, vacant lots, and abandoned buildings without access to shelter, water, electricity, food or medical care and alongside tens of thousands of displaced and homeless people already living in the rubble of Baghdad.

"What of the estimated 50,000 residents who did not leave Falluja? The US military suggested there were a couple of thousand insurgents in the city before the siege, but in the end chose to treat all the remaining inhabitants as enemy combatants."

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1325

Or legal?

[TahitiNut]

5. No. Conducting military operations against civilian populations is clearly a violation ...

... of the Geneva Conventions. Occupation forces are obliged to provide security and supplement police forces, NOT paramilitary operations.

[Time for change]

6. Too bad our corporate media doesn't cover this stuff!

[Solly Mack]

7. I'm sure Bush would just call that progress and blame the Iraqi "government"

[madfloridian]

8. Everyone blames the Iraqi government .

I hate it when they do that.

[Solly Mack]

10. me too

[MetaTrope]

9. Fallujah was about the size of Milwaukee

Just try to imagine that...