Iraq's displaced living in dumps

Shaista Aziz, Aljazeera.net

The Qawala camp, located on the outskirts of Sulaimaniya, is a bleak and depressing place, home to 3,000 internally displaced people from across Iraq. During the rainy winter months, Qawala, which was built on a landfill, resembles a bog. Stray dogs scavenge through the thick layers of mud that coat everything and the stench of sewage hangs in the cold winter air. Children play among the many discarded refrigerators that have been dumped on the site, which now houses the fragments of people’s broken lives - a warm winter blanket, a cooking pot, a ration card. Sulaimaniya, a city in northern Iraq, is home to an estimated 60,000 displaced Iraqis, many of whom have fled to escape sectarian violence and killings further south. The vast majority of the displaced come from Baghdad, Diyala and Mosul... continua / continued