Copyright June 1992 by Human Rights Watch
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 92-72351
ISBN 1-56432-069-3
DISPLACED IRAQIS AT RISK
The suppression of the uprising resulted in the exodus of over ten percent of the country's population. Iran received 1.4 million Iraqis, Turkey 450,000, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait received together some 35,000, while smaller numbers escaped to Syria and Jordan.
Today, fewer than 100,000 of the Iraqis who fled across the borders in March and early April 1991 remain abroad. Some 45,000 are in Iran, 22,000 in Saudi Arabia, and 8,000 in Turkey, according to the UNHCR. Kurds, who constituted more than 90 percent of those who fled, now account for less than a quarter of those remaining abroad. The chief factor in the repatriation of Kurds is the existence of a zone inside Iraq that is controlled by Kurdish rebels and enjoys a measure of Allied military protection. Shi'a refugees, lacking any comparable safe haven in the south, are less eager to reenter Iraq.
In the early summer of 1991, the center of the humanitarian crisis shifted from Iran and Turkey back into Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of persons remained displaced in tent camps or in the rubble of demolished villages in the rebel-held north, and in the marshes along the southeastern border. The number of persons still displaced in northern Iraq as of April 1992 was estimated at 600,000 by the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights; that number has fluctuated as people filter home or flee new outbreaks of fighting or shelling.
Approximately three-quarters of Iraq's Kurds are now living in the rebel-controlled zone. These include Kurds who have gone back to the cities they fled in March, as well as over 100,000 who are from or near the Iraqi-controlled part of their traditional homeland who are afraid to return home or whose homes have been destroyed.
A somewhat similar situation exists in the south. Although no area is firmly under rebel control or watched over by nearby Allied troops, the relatively inaccessible marshes near the Iranian border have become shelter to thousands of Shi'a who are afraid to return home. Most of the displaced Shi'a are from the three major urban areas in the area, al-Nasiriyya, al-Amara, and Basra. They include some active rebels and army deserters, as well as their families. Estimates of the number of displaced persons in the marshes run as high as 250,000. However, some observers question whether the inhospitable terrain can support a quarter of a million residents and estimate the population at well below 50,000.
Baghdad's policies toward the marshes and the rebel-held north have certain similarities. Since the uprising, frequent military incursions in both areas have inflicted civilian casualties and displaced more people. Baghdad, itself squeezed by the U.N. embargo, has in turn blockaded deliveries of food, fuel, and other goods to rebel-held Kurdistan since October, while reportedly sealing off parts of the marshes and blockading food and supplies to its inhabitants. Recent reports of a government initiative to relocate part of the marsh population have prompted comparisons with Baghdad's depopulation of the Kurdish-inhabited area near the northeastern border at the end of the Iran-Iraq war.
A factor contributing to the reluctance of refugees and displaced persons to return home is their distrust of the amnesty declared in April 1991 by Iraq's ruling Revolutionary Command Council, pardoning citizens for all offenses except premeditated murder, violations of honor and theft. While some of those who refuse to return might fear being legitimately charged with such offenses, a sizeable percentage of Iraqis have good reason to distrust any offer of amnesty from Baghdad. As the U.N. Special Rapporteur pointed out, "Allegations remain that the amnesties are...used as a means for rounding up members of opposition groups, and that the terms of the amnesties are frequently violated by government agents who arrest certain persons returning out of places of hiding....Several reports allege that persons already detained, as with several of those arrested during (and in violation of) amnesties, rather than being released have actually <disappeared= in the custody of the government." The Special Rapporteur noted significant and repeated allegations regarding Kurds from Irbil who had returned under the April 1991 amnesty and "were detained...taken to the city stadium, subjected to punishments or executed, or have subsequently disappeared."
