BAGHDAD, 27 May 2006 — Sometimes it’s a word in the ear from a neighbor, maybe a threatening note left by the door, a sinister phone call or just a vague, creeping sense of dread.
Then again it can be gunmen taking over the street and slaughtering friends and family before your eyes — whatever it is that persuades Iraqis to grab their children and flee their homes in the night, they are doing so in growing numbers.
In listing “stopping deportations” among priorities for his new national unity government, Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki has acknowledged a nascent problem likened to the “ethnic cleansing” of the Balkans in the 1990s. But few expect a quick solution.
“I came out of the house and found there was a piece of paper on my windshield,” said Abbas Mohammed, a 28-year-old minibus driver, recalling the moment he knew that as a Shiite he was no longer safe in Baghdad’s Sunni rebel stronghold of Amriya.
“It said: ‘Leave within 72 hours or you will taste our vengeance’. We left the next day and now live with my aunt.” “It’s hard to lose your memories, your friends,” he said. “But the government isn’t able to get me back home safely now.” In Baghdad alone, officials say 30-50 people are being killed each day in sectarian violence —often abducted and tortured — since February’s bombing of a major shrine in Samarra.
The numbers leave no one in any doubt about the reality of the threats.
“We left home when two of our Sunni neighbors were shot,” said Ahmed Salam Abdullah, 35, a Sunni civil servant who quit the home he owns on one of the capital’s sectarian fault lines.
Now he has joined Baghdad’s swelling army of itinerant homeless, unable to afford to rent somewhere else and moving week by week from one relative to another. “The government can’t defend itself so it can’t protect us. So I can’t go home.”
Officials say 100,000 people have registered as “displaced” in the three months since the Samarra bombing. But many more go uncounted, quietly seeking refuge with family or heading abroad.
A midnight visit from the secret police was the great anxiety in what was dubbed the “Republic of Fear” under Saddam Hussein; now Iraqis dread waking to find someone has scrawled “Go or die” on a note by the gate or daubed it on a wall.
Some say friends in the local majority community tip them off to threats. Others face more brutal awakenings.
Ali Mahmoud, 27, is one of thousands living on state and religious aid in a camp in Najaf after fleeing Latifiya, a religiously mixed town south of Baghdad.
“After the Samarra bombing, our neighbors threatened us and said we would all be killed,” he said. “We stayed put. But then about 100 gunmen surrounded our houses and opened fire.
“Two of my brothers and four of my cousins were killed.” The survivors now live on aid from the Red Crescent and the followers of Moqtada Sadr. All are at risk, Sunni or Shiite, Arab, Kurd or whatever, as shadowy gunmen with sectarian or ethnic agendas seek to clear neighborhoods of those they see as outsiders. The result is a spreading poison of communal resentments, especially in Baghdad.
“We found a note by the door saying we would be killed if we didn’t go,” said Ahmed Khamees, 42, a Sunni former resident of the mostly Shiite Shaab area. “I can’t go home till the death squads are stopped and the government makes life secure.”
Some fear the Tigris River, between mainly Shiite east and Sunni west Baghdad, could become a front-line like Beirut’s 1980s “Green Line” if Maliki fails to stop the sectarian killings.
Anxious US officials concerned about civil war hope he has the strength to halt fellow Shiite militiamen and Sunni rebels.
The Displacement Ministry says 14,607 families — 100,000 people, other officials say — have applied for aid in three months. But spokesman Sattar Nawrouz said: “Some families ... have not told the authorities ... because they don’t need help.” Also not included, are those fleeing to neighboring states.
Fuad got home late one night with his wife and sons to the east Baghdad home his Sunni family had lived in for three generations. On the gate, someone had painted: “Terrorists.” He dashed inside, grabbed some clothes and valuables and drove off. Four days later, he was living in Cairo.
“It’s hard to live when death is in our eyes. Our lives are more precious than property,” he said, his voice full of sadness. He did not want to give his full name.
“No one gave us any help ... Now I can’t trust anyone.” Many wealthier Iraqis have fled, also because anyone deemed to have money is a target for kidnap gangs who have held thousands for ransom. One passport officer in a smarter part of Baghdad said applications there had quadrupled this year.
Ahmed, 33, who did not want his full name used for fear of attracting unwelcome attention, is typical of a growing number not waiting for the scribbled note or a bullet in the back. “There was no specific threat, no piece of paper. But we just felt something coming,” the Sunni office worker said of his home in the mainly Shiite suburb of Dora, which has suffered several Sunni insurgent bombings since the war of 2003.
“For the last few years, we didn’t worry too much about all the car bombs. But in the last few months, it’s people coming to your home to assassinate you. Even the police. It’s time to go.” “We’ve rented a place in Damascus for six months. Then we’ll see. Maybe this new government will do something. Let’s see.”
