ON THE FRONT LINE WITH US

Portrait of Mais Hameed, an IDP from Al Zab area: “I have been living in Jeddah camp for 6 years, because I am not accepted back in my area of origin. My family is accused of ISIS affiliation, my husband is in prison, and If I return to our area of origin I will get arrested, as they already did, in front of me, with two of my brothers’ wives, so I wouldn’t risk going back. My mother has cancer, and if she returns to our area of origin, she would also be arrested. I never left my area until we were liberated, and there were no ISIS members. The army came and I had to leave my house. I started walking and I kept walking, because people driving cars wouldn’t accept to pick me up, until I arrived in Jeddah 5 camp. I have four children. My older son is 13 years old, and he is working as a daily worker. My second daughter is 11 years old, the third is 8 years old and my fourth daughter is 6 years old. None of them has legal documents. My children have no future. Before ISIS, life was good, we didn’t worry about anything, but now we are tired and we are falling apart”.

Iraq, Baiji. Portrait of Thaer Khaleel Sahan: “In 2014 when Isis entered our area, we remained for four months. Then we went to Al-Jazeerah, then we left to Ramadi, then we came to Tikrit where we stayed for one and a half year in the camp. When the area of Baiji was finally safe, I came back and found our house destroyed and we can’t afford to rebuild it. Life is difficult, everything is difficult, we have nothing to rebuild it as it was before so we are leaving it as it is”.

Iraq, Rabia. Portrait of Khalid Rabash Kanush. “I am 60 years old. I am one of the community leaders (mukhtar), a member of the advocacy and peace community group, and the head of the parents and teachers in Rabia. This area is considered a small Iraqi community; when you enter Rabia shops, you will see Kurdish, Azidian, and Arabic who are Sunni and Shiite. Thank God, we are united. On 3 August 2014, the community was displaced out of Rabia to Baghdad, Erbil, and Mosul. Around 600 IDPs returned here. Most of the families who were displaced to the nearby villages returned to Rabia as well. They received most of the support from NGOs, such as INTERSOS, that provided legal documents like missing Iraqi nationality, ID, marriage certificate, birth certificate, as well as food and non-food items. Thanks to NGOs support, the community was able to beak broke the fence and engage in a better way, especially with women, improving business and education”.

Portrait of Khamis Hsein Salah. “After 5 months in a camp, without working, we returned to the village Mthallath in order to look for a job. We work in agriculture. My house was burnt and I have no money to rebuild it. I’m still a migrant not because of the war but because of the bad living conditions. There is no way to make a living in the village, and we have been in the same situation for years. I work in this farmland for my cousing, I have no other support. We need salaries, compensations for our houses, and a health care center in the village. There are no paved roads in the village, all the 7 km of roads are sand. When my son gets sick, I can’t take him to the doctor”.