Uprooted Shia Flood into Kut

The old woman's face and hands are covered with traditional Arab tattoos. Passing her hands through her granddaughter's hair, Wuzyia Mubarak Salman, 60, told her story with tears streaming down her cheeks.



Salman, a Shia, moved with her family to Abu Ghraib in western Baghdad thirty years ago. Last month, she abandoned her home after she received an anonymous death threat.



"They wrote on the wall of our house, 'You have 24 hours to leave or we will blow up the house [with] you and your children [inside]’," said Salman, who fled to Kut - a majority Shia city, 160 kilometres south of Baghdad - after the warning.



Salman, who presently lives in two tents with her two married sons and ten grandchildren, says Shias are targeted because they are taking over the reins of power in Iraq and Sunnis don’t like it.



"'Leave this area,’ they said. ‘We don't want you. You are Shias and do not have a place here'," recalled Salman, who’s nephew was killed on his way to work.



Since the 2003 US-led invasion, Kut has escaped most of the unrest afflicting some parts of the country, and in the past month it has become a refuge for Shias escaping the sectarian violence that has boiled over since the February bombings of two Shia shrines in Samarra.



Iraq's ministry of migration and displacement estimates that as many as 30,000 Shias and Sunnis have been uprooted by the recent fighting. More than 500 displaced families, the vast majority of them Shias, have registered in the Kut office, seeking a place to live.



Ali Abbas Jahakir, the head migration ministry in Kut, said the city is overwhelmed by the new arrivals, "Our governorate is unable to accommodate all of these families."



Most of those who’ve found shelter here have received death threats and more than half have lost relatives in the sectarian violence.



Hassanayn Ali Hanun, 23, moved with his brother from southern Iraq to live in Baghdad several months after the fall of Saddam's regime. There they rented a house and both found jobs as fruit sellers.



He arrived in Kut two weeks ago, pulling up in a blue Toyota van that he had rented. Hanun, his 16-year-old wife, Kifaya, and his mother came to the camp after piling all of their belongings into the back of the vehicle.



Hanun was tired, still mourning the death of his brother, who was killed because he had ignored a threat to leave Dora, a majority Sunni neighbourhood in Baghdad.



"My brother and I stayed even after we received the threat because we had not done anything wrong. But they killed my brother one week later," he said. "I am very sad now. I lost my brother. I lost my house and left everything behind."



The Iraqi Red Crescent Society has turned Kut’s old amusement park into a camp for the displaced. They give each family a tent, a kerosene heater for cooking, a blanket, drinking water and food, and also provide medical treatment.



Hussein Ali Abdulla, 13, came with his family from Hawija, about 400 km north of Kut, after they were threatened. He and his friends now play among the remnants of the amusement park, once one of the city’s attractions.



"We play all day on these rusty Ferris wheels," said Abdullah. "We have nothing else to do."



Down the street, an old building that used to be the city's youth centre is now accommodating about 20 families.



Just as a strong wind covered the entire building with dust, Abu Ali stepped out to tell his story.



Abu Ali, who did not want to give his full name, said he had lived with his Sunni neighbours in western Baghdad for 55 years. But one day, he went on, gunmen attacked him and his Shia relatives, killing five of them.



He is now angry with the Americans because as soon as the violence began, they pulled out of the area, leaving Iraqi forces - who he believes are not up to the job.



"The Iraqi army is unable to protect us," he said. "The Americans never do anything. And if they want to do something they do it only when it is in their own interest, and not that of the Iraqi people."



Iraqi officials are encouraging the displaced families to return to their homes as soon as possible, but many of them are still afraid to go back.



"We can not return," said Salman. "They will slaughter us and our children."



Ayub Nuri is an Iraqi freelance reporter and a former IWPR radio trainer.