SOME OF OUR FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS:
—Over one million residents of Baghdad could be driven from their homes in the next six months if Iraq’s sectarian violence continues at its current level. Only a lack of resources and available contacts in safer areas are likely to prevent this number from becoming still larger.
—Between the February 28, 2006 bombing of the Holy Shrine in Samara and January 10, 2007, our findings show that 546,078 Iraqis have become internally displaced persons (IDPs). The overwhelming majority of these IDPs —about 80%—are from Baghdad. The pace of those fleeing is accelerating at a dramatic rate. Since last November alone, the number of those displaced has jumped by 43%.
—Sectarian violence and the fear, tension and insecurity surrounding that violence are the principal factors driving this development.
—The humanitarian situation is deteriorating at an increasingly rapid rate and there are few indicators of any change in this trend in the short term. While often over-used, the words “humanitarian crisis” accurately describe conditions now unfolding inside Iraq. Long-term displacement seriously reduces the ability of many Iraqis to sustain their livelihood, while the disruption to the lives of IDPs and restricted movements caused by sectarian fighting deny particularly women, children, and minorities of access to basic healthcare services.
—We expect a relatively small minority of those forced from their homes—less than 10%–to leave the country, a fact that centers Iraq’s growing crisis of displaced civilian population squarely within the country. The plight of Iraq’s IDPs requires the immediate attention of the international community.
—The bombing of the Samara Holy Shrine on February 28, 2006 was a watershed that began large scale separation of Baghdad’s population along sectarian lines. Those families that fled the capital to other areas of the country or elsewhere within the capital have sought refuge amid populations of their own sectarian belief. The development has further consolidated the deepening of sectarian divisions in Iraq.
—Unlike the temporary displacement of civilians that occurred prior to February 2006—displacements caused largely by military operations such as those conducted in 2004-5 in and around Falluja and Tal Afar—the new wave of IDPs appear to be more permanent. Among many factors, the sale or abandonment of real property is just one piece of evidence that suggests this permanence.
—The enmity surrounding this violence acts as a cement that also gives these shifts a sense of permanence. Simple fear prevents IDPs of one sect returning to homes located in areas whose population stems predominantly from the other sect. The factors at work here are similar to those that drove the separation of populations in Bosnia and Kosovo during the last decade.
—The development constitutes a de facto “ghettoization” of the capital, not unlike that which occurred in Sarajevo in the early 1990s.
—Nearly four years after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s statue in central Baghdad, just a few districts in the capital—such as Karrada and parts of Al-Mansoor—can today be described as still mixed along sectarian lines.
—We expect about 350,000 of the new IDPs created in the coming months to remain within Baghdad, taking refuge among “their own kind”. Over 200,000 Sunni residents of the city are likely to move to Sunni-majority governorates west, north and east of the capital, while a slightly larger number of Shia IDPs are expected to move to the Shia-dominated south. Less than 1% are expected to seek the relative calm of Iraq’s Kurdistan region.
—Any forced return of IDPs to their original homes in neighborhoods or areas where there are few members of their own sect is likely to spur additional violence and a new wave of displacement.
International Medical Corps programs operated in 16 of Iraq’s 18 governorates.
METHODOLOGY:
Data for this study was cross-tabulated from a variety of sources including:
• Iraq’s Ministry of Displacement and Migration
• Iraq’s national police
• local tribal, clan and religious leaders
• on-going International Medical Corps staff door-to-door, neighborhood by neighborhood, interviews with individuals in the capital and in outlying governorates
• focus group discussion.
The report is not a scientific study. It is an assessment of current and projected population movements based on the data gathered.