Aug. 16, 2010 issue
CPT Iraq organizes meal with displaced people, urban group
By Marius van Hoogstraten Christian Peacemaker TeamsPage:
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ZHARAWA, Iraqi Kurdistan — When Golstan Saeed Mohamad visited a displaced persons’ tent camp near Zharawa, she was reminded of hardships under former president Saddam Hussein.
Venus Shamal Karim from Suleimaniya visits with children from a displaced persons’ tent camp near Zharawa, Iraqi Kurdistan, in a trip co- organized by Christian Peacemaker Teams. — Photo by Peggy Gish/Christian Peacemaker Teams
In 1991, she and many others fled from the cities to these mountains to escape Hussein, who was brutally crushing a Kurdish rebellion the U.S. had called for during the Gulf War.
“When I saw the people living in the tents, I remembered those days in 1991,” she said. “No food, no clean water. It was raining during that time. People were dying because of hunger and the cold weather.”
Mohamad, a librarian, was one of about 25 people from the city of Suleimaniya who shared lunch July 23 with the community living in the tent camp.
Christian Peacemaker Teams Iraq co-organized the trip, seeking to foster a sense of common humanity between urban Kurds and the displaced communities in border areas.
People in those communities had to abandon their homes due to Iranian and Turkish attacks.
“The people in the cities, they know what’s going on in the border [areas], and the people being displaced,” said Mohammed Mahdi, an English teacher from Suleimaniya and one of the organizers of the trip.
Events such as this one help visitors to “see, directly, the situation of the people, when they sit with them, when they eat with them, when they see the tents,” Mahdi said.
The visitors from Suleimaniya had prepared pots of dolma, or stuffed vine leaves, and brought fruit and drinks to pass out.
Bayz Abbas Pirot, a father and former farmer now living in the Zharawa camp, said the event was “very different” from normal days, and the dolma were great.
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