Sharia camp fire; Yazidi refugees are back to square one

10-06-2021 12:50

PEREGRAF– Ammar Aziz

Khalaf is taking his afternoon nap when he was woken up by sweltering heat and the screaming of people, all he manages to do is grab his children’s hands and rush them out of the camp.

Soon, flames spread to Khalaf's tent, as if it’s lit up by gasoline, his furnishings turn to ash in a matter of seconds.

"I came out of the tent as I heard people and my children’s voice, I saw a massive fire was close by, a fire so massive and so strong had never broken out in the camp before, so I sent my children out of the camp as soon as possible," he told Peregraf.

Khalaf reaches out to a small fire extinguisher, but as he sees the size of the fire, he backs out and realizes there is nothing he can do but escape.

Hussein Elias Khalaf, 57, is from Shingal’s Gr Ouzer sub-district, he has been a refugee in Sharia camp for seven years, he is one of the victims of the fire who lost savings to the fire that he had collected with day to day labour.

The Sharia Camp fire incident in Duhok’s Semel District took place at 2:00 pm on June 4, where Yazidis have been displaced since 2014 as the Islamic State (ISIS) attacked their areas.

A total of 300 tents were completely burnt down in the fire, another 100 were damaged – although no deaths were recorded, several people were injured. Moreover, more than 180 families were affected and suffered losses.

"Around two million dinars ($1,369) was burned in the tent, I had saved up that money from my daily labour, because I don't have a salary and I only get 15 to 25 thousand dinars a day," Khalaf said.

Sharia camp houses 2,379 displaced families, a total of 13,549 individuals, it is the third most crowded camp in the Kurdistan Region and the majority of its residents are Yazidis of Nineveh province.

"The fire was so strong, it spread to our tent in a blink of an eye, we were only able to save ourselves," Adu Qute, who hadn’t eaten for twenty-four hours and hadn’t recovered from the shock, said.

Qute lost her husband and several other family members to ISIS. They were kidnapped by the terror group, and their fate is yet unknown.

"My heart is even more filled with sorrow and suffering, I don't know what to say, our house is destroyed, we have no place to go to," she added. "God, save us from camp life, we can't live in camps anymore," she raises her hand in prayer.

That was not the first time a fire has occurred in refugee camps, but Sharia’s latest fire has been the largest, with more material losses compared to the previous incidents.

"We don't know the reason for the fire, some say it was because of an electricity shortage, but we can't decide now, there might be other reasons," Bewar Abdulaziz, head of the Duhok Civil Defense Media office, told Peregraf.

The incident soon brought senior officials from the Kurdistan Region and Iraq on board, and investigations are ongoing to see the cause of the fire.

"Six people were slightly injured in the fire, two of them police but their health is stable after receiving treatment, however about 30 displaced people have breathing difficulties," Abdulaziz said.

Allegations went around that the late arrival of civil defense teams was the reason the fire went out of hand. However officials in the Duhok civil defense directorate said they arrived early at the scene and "controlled the fire in two hours."

There is no fire station at the camp, firefighting teams and trucks were brought from out of the shelter.

"Word is that an old woman has baked bread using a gas oven, then forgot to turn it off, so a fire broke out. The woman's tent was the first to burn down and then gradually spread to other tents," says Kasu Murad Mjewr.

Mjewr, was displaced seven years ago, and his three tents and all his property were burned. He and his children survived the fire with nothing but the clothes they were wearing, just like the way they fled ISIS in Shingal in 2014.

"I have nothing left but my shirt," Kasu told Peregraf. He is concerned about his children – five girls and three boys. "It is better to remove the tents once and for all, and each family builds one or two rooms for themselves with bricks instead."

Unlike the Kurdistan Region, most refugee camps in Iraqi provinces are closed and the people have been returned to their homes, but those in the region, especially the Yazidis, do not want to return to their homeland because of destroyed homes, villages, and towns and current issues with administration and security.

The Iraqi Ministry of Migration and Displacement in a statement expressed readiness to raise the refugees' demands to the Council of Ministers, particularly for compensating their losses, despite the immediate decision to provide tents, supplies and household necessities.

In light of these events, head of the camp Sardar Younis, was removed from his post and was replaced by Hakar Mohammed Amin.

"According to our information, the reason for the fire was an electricity shortage, I can't say that the former administration of the camp was negligent," Hakar Muhammad told Peregraf, "the thing is there are fire trucks in the camp but their engines are not working, and this has had a bad impact, even though the firefighting teams got there on time."

According to him, 187 families have been affected by the fire of 300 tents and have suffered a lot of financial damage.

"Fortunately, Duhok’s Civil Defense team soon controlled the fire," Karwan Zaki, head of media in Kurdistan Region’s Joint Crisis Coordination Center (JCC) told Peregraf, a body that oversees the situation of the displaced in the Kurdistan region. "According to committee reports, 288 tents were burned in four sections of the camp and 130 families were affected, many of those tents were empty and no one lived in them."

A day after the incident, cleaning started, so that the foundation bricks of the tents would be painted again to set up new tents, and to distribute blankets with new furniture. Zaki says the residency was built to be a camp, so they can’t place bricks on all the tents.

"It doesn't matter to us what the refugees say about the cause of the fire," he said. "We are talking with evidence; we have formed a committee … After a thorough investigation, it has been revealed that an electricity shortage was the reason."

The distance between two tents in the camp is three meters, and according to an official from the JCC, refugees have set up small tents in between, which is the reason for the fast spread of the fire.

"They used to change the refugee every two years, but the process was later halted as financial support work by many organizations in the camps were drawn up, so their tents have not been changed for about two years," added Zaki.

There are more than 665,000 refugees in the Kurdistan Region, some live in the 26 camps in Erbil, Sulaimaniyah and Duhok, according to statistics from the Ministry of Interior’s JCC.

Khalaf wishes the incident had been a bad dream from his nap and hopes they never go through this tragedy again.

"I swear to god I bought my house furniture with labour money, and it was all gone in a few minutes. How can we restart a new life if we are in nylon and fabric tents that are always at risk of burning?" he said.