Sectarian violence leads to displacement in capital

Dozens of families in the capital, Baghdad, have been displaced from their neighbourhoods due to the sectarian violence that has come in the wake of the Samarra shrine bombing in February and subsequent attacks. "The explosions at the Samarra mosque and the attack on a market in the Sadr district [of Baghdad] have frightened minority communities in some neighbourhoods,” said Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) spokeswoman Ferdous al-Abadi. “They’re afraid they could become victims of sectarian violence.” On 22 February, the bombing of a revered Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, about 100 km northwest of the capital, left more than 75 people dead and sparked sectarian reprisal attacks countrywide. On Thursday, the Ministry of Interior announced that at least 630 people had been killed as a result of sectarian violence since the Samarra bombing. Many families in Baghdad, lacking essential supplies, have preferred to camp outside their neighbourhoods rather than risk being killed in their homes by armed sectarian groups. According to the IRCS, more than 300 families from different areas of the capital have been displaced, many of them Sunni residents of majority Shi'ite neighbourhoods. "We believe that many more families have been displaced from these districts, but we still need to study the situation and see how we can offer help,” said al-Abadi. “But with an ongoing government-imposed curfew, the situation is much more difficult." Sunnis are not the only ones to have fled their homes in fear of reprisal. There are also numerous Shi’ite families who prefer to live in deteriorating conditions rather than risk being killed in their majority-Sunni neighbourhoods. "Since the violence began, my family and I have become strangers in the neighbourhood,” said Shi’ite Abu Ali Sinan, 42, who found refuge in an abandoned government building in the Adhamiya district of the capital. “Everyone looked at us differently, and even the children were mistreated by Sunni colleagues at school." Local NGOs, meanwhile, are struggling to provide essential supplies to the displaced, especially the many living in improvised tents, football stadiums and outside of public university campuses. "We’re offering water, blankets and food to about 150 families displaced from different areas of the capital, but much more is required," said Muhammad Kutaiba, spokesman for Iraq Relief for People, a local NGO. "Many more families will find themselves displaced in the days ahead, and urgent measures will be needed to prevent their suffering from this unjust sectarian violence."