Fighting in central and northern Iraq has forced 4.2 million people to flee from their homes. More than 11 million people are in need of humanitarian aid due to the ongoing crisis. Oxfam is providing life-saving assistance to those who have been affected by the conflict.
Nur and her husband Muhammed inside the tent where they and their children sleep. They recently returned home to their village in Mosul. Photo: Zaid Al-Bayati/Oxfam
Oxfam providing support to families in Iraq who have been twice displaced
For Nur and her family, the last few years have been a series of uprootings. In 2016, she, her husband Muhammed, and their children were forced from their home near Mosul during the war on ISIS.
“I remember like it was yesterday,” she says. “We left our house due to airstrikes, and we moved to the next village over, for six months, but we were forced to leave when ISIS threatened us.”
Nur was part of a migration of more than a million people who had to leave their homes in search of stability during the conflict with ISIS. Her family eventually settled in a camp for displaced people in Iraq. The transition was difficult, especially for the children. “There was no education for the kids,” she recounts. “[There was] no proper home to keep them in.”
While Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi declared victory over the Islamic State in Iraq in 2017, families like Nur’s remained in the camps, unable to return home. Years of intense fighting has left buildings uninhabitable. And with few sources of income, and limited basic services, including clean water and electricity, families are struggling to survive.
Earlier in 2021, the camp Nur’s family had sought refuge in was shuttered. People living there were only given one week’s notice. After four years away, they scrambled to plan their returns home.
“We did not know that where our house had been, there was now nothing but bare ground,” Nur says. “There [are] no income opportunities in our village.”
The IDP camp Nur’s family left was not the only one to close—a recent string of camp closures in Iraq has created a surge of movement. Thousands of people have been sent back to their place of origin. Returning residents currently outnumber the job opportunities available.
“The moment I arrived it was like a new place,” she shares. “I did not recognize the village – everything was gone. So I spent the day in my relative’s house where there were already four families in one place, and then I slept in the tent with my kids as there is no space for us there.”
Nur and Muhammed have sought out work as day laborers to help cover their most basic needs. So far, they’ve had no luck. “When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is ask around to find if there are any job opportunities,” says Nur.
They have considered moving to Mosul city to find work but Nur says the cost of living there is too high.
“It’s very hard to keep up with the children’s expenses. One of my children is sick and I can’t take him to the doctor.”
They have been borrowing money to meet their costs, but Nur knows that it is not sustainable to keep going. The family is now over 500,000 Iraqi dinar (USD$340) in debt, with no hope of paying it back.
How Oxfam is helping displaced families in Iraq
Nur describes the process of migrating to the camp and back as “starting from nothing twice.” Oxfam is alleviating some of the stress for families like Nur’s who are having to rebuild their lives once again by providing basic items to help them survive this transition, such as portable stoves and heaters, solar lamps, jerry cans, and mattresses and bedding.
So far, Oxfam has reached over 40,000 people with essential items, cash, and information about where to access basic services. We are supporting displaced and returning families with kits like the one Nur’s family is receiving. For people who have experienced specific traumas, such as survivors of gender-based violence, we are also working to provide specialized support.
“We are thankful for this very essential support,” says Nur. “Without it we could have been sleeping on the floor with my kids. I do not wish anyone to go through any of this.”
You can support families around the world, who like Nur’s, are working to escape poverty.
Children at Al Rusul school for girls in Mosul, Iraq. Photo: Tegid Cartwright/Oxfam
For a good bit of us here in Ireland, it’s back to school time, which means parents and children are back to stressing about making it out of the door in the mornings on-time. Five minutes late? That’s no bother to some children going back to school in Iraq right now as they also worry about clean and safe access to toilets. Did you know that more than 1/2 of schools in Iraq need rehabilitation and 2.5 million children need help to access education?
Returning Home
During the three-year reign of terror by ISIS, Iraq’s once thriving city of Mosul was torn apart by fighting. Homes, health centres and schools were bombed and shattered to pieces. For many of Mosul’s children and their loved ones, their happy memories and old lives have all gone as children have seen their parents, grandparents or siblings being killed. They’ve lived under the daily terror of violent occupation. Without schooling, only 5% of 8 to 9-year-olds can now read and solve math problems at an appropriate grade level.
When it was safe for Bibi, a student, to return to her old primary school in west Mosul, she found it was a shell. An empty shell. The windows had been blown out, the furniture was broken, and the classrooms empty, void of the children’s work that had once filled their walls. The school’s sanitation system had been destroyed. There was no running water and the toilet floors were covered in rubbish, mud and faeces. The stench was so bad it made the children feel sick.
“When ISIS came, I stayed here for awhile and then I was told to leave. It [the school] was destroyed, the furniture was broken. All our records were all over the floor. There was nothing left for us. Two years of the students’ lives are gone.”
-Muna Husein Kadu, Headteacher at the Al Rusul Primary School for girls
The bathrooms in Al Rusul school for girls before Oxfam carried out rehabilitation work to install clean and sanitary toilets and sinks for the students to use. Photo: Tegid Cartwright/Oxfam
Back to School
In west Mosul, families are gradually returning home to rebuild their lives after the conflict with ISIS, and over the last few months children have started slowly going back to school to restart their education. Oxfam’s teams have helped to rehabilitate the water and sanitation systems in over 30 key schools, ensuring hundreds of children going back to school have a safe and sanitary environment in which to learn. This work is complemented by educational sessions on hygiene that teach children about the importance of keeping themselves and the environment clean through interactive games. These sessions also serve as a fun way for the children to engage with each other and rebuild friendships.
In just three days – that’s right, just three days – Oxfam workers on the ground rebuilt the sanitation system at Bibi’s school, the Al Rusul Primary School for girls. This is the fast, effective, and life-changing difference we can bring to children in Iraq with the support of donors. Now more than half of the schools in Iraq need rehabilitation, along with hundreds of schools in war-torn countries like Syria. We must make sure they have a better future. In three days, we can help protect their future. Together, we can help Mosul’s children get an education, and avoid a lifetime of poverty. We can make sure that boys and girls are in school and not at risk of being worked to the bone – for as little as 10,000 dinars (less than nine dollars a day) – as child labourers. With so many obstacles already making it hard for Mosul’s children to get an education, sanitation should not be one of them.
“The kids are the ones with the hope. They want to carry on and progress”.
-Muna Husein Kadu, Headteacher at the Al Rusul Primary School for girls
By Jerry Wessen, Oxfam Ireland’s Communications and Campaigns Intern.
The Iraqi city of Mosul was left devastated after occupation by ISIS – homes were ruined, schools were blown apart and infrastructure was uprooted. Now that the fighting has ended, families have returned to the city to rebuild and are slowly sending their children back to school.
One school located in west Mosul, Al Rusul Primary School for Girls, was completely destroyed. Muna Husein Kadu, the headteacher of the school explains: “It [the school] was destroyed, the furniture was broken. All our records were all over the floor. There was nothing left for us.” Students are two years behind on schooling and lost records make the situation worse.
“The kids are the ones with hope, they want to carry on and progress.”
Other than the school’s building being damaged, the bathrooms were also in dire need of attention. The toilets and sinks don’t work, and new septic tanks are needed - plus the smell makes it unbearable to step foot in the bathroom, let alone use it.
With so many obstacles already making it hard for these children to go to school, sanitation should not be one of them. So, Oxfam has focused our efforts on rehabilitating the water and sanitation systems of several schools in Mosul.
Gashaw Shareef is the lead of the project for Oxfam, in charge of contracting out the work and being the headteacher’s liaison. She explains the tasks at hand: “We clean the toilets first and then rehabilitate the sinks and then repair the taps with handles. [To] get rid of the smell is the most important thing.”
The efforts to reconstruct the bathrooms in the Al Rusul school took a total of three days, including installing new pipes and water tanks and sanitising the bathrooms.
One of the students said: “[Before], we couldn’t even go inside before because of the dirt and the horrible smell. It’s so much better now.”
Rehabilitating the bathroom was not the only goal. Gashaw explains: “We fix all the toilets and then we teach them how to use it.” Proper sanitation techniques are as important as new bathroom facilities for keeping communities safe from deadly disease.
Gashaw says: “When I see the results I will be happy, they are happy and that’s enough for me.”
The soft soil falls away easily as the sharp metal hits the ground. Again and again Falah Abiya raises the axe above his head and brings it down on the compacted earth. Two of his colleagues stand waiting beside him, stepping in with shovels to remove the soil he has loosened.
The blue skies, dotted with clouds and the mid morning autumn sun do not match the tough work that Falah and his team have to do in Mosul today. They are digging graves in a large cemetery in the west of the city. “We have twenty-two to dig today”, Falah comments in between swinging his pick Axe.
Falah’s team work for the department of Forensic Pathology, which is being supported by Mosul General Hospital. Although they usually spend their days digging graves for people who have just died, today their work is of a different kind. They are working on a special programme to help the state identify bodies that have already been buried.
“The work we are doing here is very sensitive but very necessary”, says Dr Aziz, who works at Mosul General Hospital. “It’s important we know who has died and why. We must make sure the people buried in those graves are the people we have been told they are. Once we have recovered a body we run DNA tests to check.”
Today Hamid Hassan Jassim stands watching Falah’s team at work; the grave belongs to his brother Mahmud. “He died in a suicide bombing at a checkpoint. His head was missing when we buried him,” he says. Suddenly Falah’s axe hits something hard and he uses his hands to expose a wooden plank which he then pulls from the hole. Three of the team carefully lower themselves into the hole and slowly pull out a black plastic body bag.
Everyone is quiet as the team unzip the plastic bag and reveal what is left of Mahmud’s body, wrapped in a red blanket. The forensic examiner pulls on rubber gloves and carefully opens the blanket before inspecting its contents. He immediately confirms the head is missing and through his examination he also suggests that the man did in fact die in an explosion. He takes samples and zips the bag back up.
“Oxfam has supported the hospital in a lot of ways since Mosul was retaken.” Says Dr Aziz. The axes Falah and the team are using were donated to Oxfam and then the hospital by Irish Aid. As were other essential items such as mosquito nets which are being used to keep the flies off of burns patients and those with extensive wounds. “We hope we will continue to receive support from Oxfam so that we can keep doing this essential work and taking care of people who need urgent medical care.”
Mosul General Hospital sees an estimated 800 patients a day. As well as providing the pick axes, Oxfam has supported the hospital with essential items such as water tanks, bottled water, emergency food rations, blankets and mosquito nets.
Hamid stands and watches Falah and his colleague Sadam Hamadi carefully lower his brother Mahmud’s newly wrapped body back into the ground, re-covering it with the soft soil. They then throw their shovels and pick axes over their shoulders and make a move to the next grave. They have twenty one more to dig today.
Wafaa and her family in the half build house they now call home. Photo: Tommy Trenchard/Oxfam
"We fled from our home; there were so many dead bodies on the streets." Wafaa (name changed to protect identity) sits on the floor in one of three rooms in a small, half-built house her brother rents for their families in Kahlo Bazini, in Kirkuk, northern Iraq. Conditions in the house are basic at best, some of the walls aren't yet finished and until Oxfam intervened they had no facilities to wash, no toilet, and no clean water.
"Our living situation is difficult, but we make things work; my brother works cleaning shops so that he can earn money to provide food for us. My children and I all depend on my brother. He goes to clean the shops and then brings home vegetables, things like tomatoes, and shares them between my children and his. We have lived in this same situation for a while," explains Wafaa.
Before arriving in Kirkuk, Wafaa and her family moved several times trying to escape ISIS as they took control of large areas of Iraq in 2014. "When we first left out home, we went to my brother's house in Al Eshaqi. We were there for three days and then attacks, bombing and killings started in the streets, so we left to go to my sister's house; she lived far away from the places that had been captured by ISIS. We didn't stay there very long though, about 27 days, and then the fighting started there as well. There were airstrikes, missiles and bombs everywhere."
At one point Wafaa and her family were forced to live in an empty school building: 'The school had no appliances; there was no water, toilets or place to wash; the water we were using came directly from the river, it was dirty and polluted. It gave us a lot of infections and allergic reactions. No one came to check if we were okay and the fighting continued to reach us again.
"Then my son got ill; he fell on the ground and his face swelled up. My son is only six years old. I had to tell my family that I couldn't stay there any longer." But the area was surrounded from both sides.
Wafaa Derwesh* (name changed), 39, was displaced with her family when ISIS took control of her village. She now lives in a small village near Kirkuk called Khalo Bazini. Photo: Tommy Trenchard / Oxfam
The school where Wafaa and her family were staying was isolated and very far from any roads, "It was like we had escaped to a small empty island far away", Wafaa explains. "There was no water and no electricity. And then ISIS struck. Three ISIS fighters who were carrying guns and firing passed by us; we were so scared we ran away again.
"When ISIS came, there were a lot of other families at the school; many of them left the school with us to escape ISIS. They put their black flag above the school; the same school that had been like a home to us." As Wafaa sits in the dark room of the house she and her family now call home she tells the story of how they escaped from ISIS.
"We left the school at around 4.00am and we reached the army controlled area at 12.00pm. ISIS had destroyed all the bridges. It was a cold winter, we had no clothes with us and we were trying to escape from ISIS. We were in bad situation, but there were other families and relatives who couldn't leave because ISIS had already taken control of the area and taken them under siege."
Not all of her family had been so fortunate. "My sister was still living at the school. She didn't have a car, and random bombing and air strikes had already begun between the army and ISIS. She was alone in the middle of their battle. She called my mom and told her the battle had begun and that she was about to give birth to her baby.
"One of my sister's neighbours was her midwife at the birth. It all happened during these air strikes and bombings. We were having a very cold and rainy spell and my sister was giving birth to her new child. She had been complaining about the pain in her stomach but there was no doctor, no food, and no medicine, and no car for her to get to them."
Even though ISIS had surrounded the area, Wafaa and her brothers went back to the school to try and fetch their sister. They wanted to get her the medical help she so badly needed. "She was on the dirty ground that had been polluted and her stomach was too swollen, I can't describe it, we couldn't do anything for her; we were helpless and powerless. It was very difficult to see her like that; she was my sister."
Wafaa managed to get her sister out of the school but she died soon after that. 'That's how I last saw her; it was very tragic; we all suffered and felt sad about losing her. We had become displaced in one way, and her daughters who are very young became displaced in a different way.' After her sister died, Wafaa took in her nieces and now provides for them as well as her own children.
There are currently over 3.2 million people displaced in Iraq, and even after their village or town has been recaptured from ISIS, families like Wafaa's aren't able to go home due to the level of destruction, number of mines left behind and the slow vetting process that ensues. "Our area was liberated a long time ago," Wafaa explains, "but they won't allow us to return because there are mines that have been planted, explosive devices and bombs in our farms and houses. Behind our home ISIS planted many bombs and explosive devices.
"I'm not afraid of anything. I'm waiting for the checkpoint at Balad to open and then I'll return to my house. My home was small but nice, and I was living happily in it. We left because ISIS attacked us; missiles were falling everywhere and my children were crying. It was a difficult situation and it was hard on my children. I couldn't make them understand that we had left because of the bombing and the battle between the army and ISIS. My children were afraid of ISIS.
"My young children are always saying that they miss their games and our house. They ask me when will we go back? All the displaced people here want to return to our homes because we are exhausted."
WHAT OXFAM IS DOING IN IRAQ
On Friday October 7th Irish Aid delivered 80 tonnes of aid to Iraq for Oxfam to distribute to vulnerable people fleeing the conflict in Mosul and beyond. Items being sent include blankets, jerry cans, cooking sets, water tanks, tarpaulins and shelter kits.
Ireland's Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan said he is gravely concerned up to 1.5 million people in the city of Mosul have been living under siege for more than two years, with a further 1 million in surrounding areas currently under ISIS control.
Oxfam has been working in 50 villages and towns across Diyala and Kirkuk governorates in northern Iraq since 2014. We are providing safe water in camps and in communities where people who have fled the fighting are sheltering, and enabling people to earn a living so that they can support their families. We have also been helping families as they return home once it is safe to do so.
We are now scaling up our response in the Mosul Corridor, operating in Salah Al-Din and Ninewa governorates. Oxfam is also working in the key strategic area of Qayyarat, which is 80km south of Mosul and sandwiched between ISIS-controlled territories. We are providing clear water and sanitation and essential items like blankets and hygiene kits.
Oxfam works across Iraq including in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
As military operations begin to retake the city of Mosul and surrounding areas from ISIS, we are expecting to help 60,000 people.
