SAMARRA: Accused of links with the Islamic State group, hundreds of Iraqi families have been evicted from displacement camps only to find their hometowns and tribes angrily refusing their return.
Left in limbo, they represent the complex legacy of the IS sweep across Iraq, which is keen to move on two years after ousting the jihadists but apparently unable to reconcile its traumatised communities.
In Samarra, a tribal area north of Baghdad, Sheikh Adnan al-Bazzi said there is "no way" IS-affiliated families would be allowed back to their areas of origin. "The tribes, the families of those killed or wounded, those who lost their homes or were displaced, who have nothing -- they can’t accept the relatives of IS," said Bazzi.
IS killed one of his brothers, an uncle and a cousin and Bazzi himself was wounded when the jihadists blew up his home, not once but twice. And the threat isn’t over, he told AFP.
With IS sleeper cells still conducting hit-and-run attacks in the desert territory around Samarra, Bazzi said that resettling families with alleged IS ties could prove dangerous. "There are terrorists still attacking military patrols, so how can you bring their families back?" he said, dressed in the traditional white robe and headdress of Iraq’s powerful clans.
Tribes wield considerable influence in Iraq, where they often disregard government institutions to resolve disputes based on close-knitted traditions and religious custom. When IS rampaged across Iraq in 2014, the family clans that make up the tribes had to choose sides: some backing the jihadists while others took up arms alongside government forces to fight them.
The war against the jihadists forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes and move into displacement camps, including in the northern Nineveh province where IS had its bastion.
Two years after Iraq declared IS defeated, the government is determined to shut down displacement camps across the country which are home to around 1.6 million Iraqis. In August, authorities bussed more than 2,000 displaced from camps to their home provinces of Salaheddin, Anbar and Kirkuk, sparking concern from the United Nations and rights groups.
The UN said the returns could put families in danger and rights watchdogs said the transfers are at best poorly coordinated or forced, and at worst expose returnees to threats of violence in their home communities.
Earlier this month, three hand grenades were thrown into the Basateen camp in Salaheddin province, a day after the arrival of 150 displaced families from Nineveh. The following day it was hit by two more grenades. And on Sunday armed men wounded two soldiers guarding the camp, a security official said.
Protests have also erupted outside camps against the government’s bid to return displaced families to their homes, and in one case when families were transferred to their hometown of Haditha in Anbar it turned ugly.
"It was clear from the moment they arrived there that they were at risk of being killed," said Belkis Wille, Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Police then took them to a school about three kilometres away from Haditha and there was a grenade attack on them there," she said.
