BAGHDAD, 27 June 2006 — Iraq’s sectarian violence of the past four months has pushed the number of displaced people to above 130,000, Parliament heard yesterday as members urged ministers to give more aid and security to contain the crisis. “There should be more field visits to understand their plight,” Sunni Arab parliamentarian Dhafir Al-Ani told the assembly. “The government should take direct steps and provide security for displaced families, including at their camps.”
Iraq’s Ministry of Displaced and Migration now puts the number of internal refugees at 130,386, or 21,731 families, its spokesman Sattar Nowruz said. The number of registered displaced has climbed by as much as 30,000 in the last month, according to ministry statistics.
The actual figure must be higher as many thousands go uncounted, quietly seeking refuge with relatives or heading abroad. The problem has been likened to the “ethnic cleansing” of the Balkans in the 1990s and few expect a quick solution.
Sectarian violence, which kills dozens of people a day in Baghdad alone, has started to force demographic shifts, with Shiites and Sunnis fleeing for safer areas made up of their own sect. Mixed neighborhoods are breaking apart.
Some fear the Tigris River, between mainly Shiite east and Sunni west Baghdad, could become a front line akin to Beirut’s 1980s “Green Line” if Shiite Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki fails to stop the sectarian killings. He presented a national reconciliation plan to Parliament on Sunday, which was long on promises but short on details of exactly how he would tackle sectarian violence.
A Sunni leader said yesterday that the insurgency would persist until Washington sets a timetable to withdraw its troops and that loyalists to ousted leader Saddam Hussein should be included in peace talks. Vice President Tariq Al-Hashemi said Maliki’s national reconciliation plan fell well short of its goals to defuse the Sunni Arab insurgency and heal Iraq’s sectarian wounds.
Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda insurgents claimed the killing of four Russian hostages in a gruesome Internet video. Violence continued on the ground yesterday, with at least 11 Iraqis killed by gunmen in a series of shootings across Iraq. Russia said it could not confirm the killing of four Russian hostages after the Al-Qaeda-led Mujahedeen Shoura (consultative) Council in Iraq released a video Sunday purportedly showing two of the men being executed.
“There is no 100 percent certainty that it was our people who were executed,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Ren-TV.
