Gorilla’s Guides

A dark pool of dried blood and a fallen red scarf mark the place where Ronak, who had fled to a woman’s shelter in the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah when she was accused of adultery by her husband, was shot three times by a man hiding on the roof of a nearby building.

Ronak was wounded by bullets in the neck, side and leg and only survived after a four-hour operation. She was the latest victim of a huge increase across Iraq in the number of “honour” killings of women for alleged immorality by their own families.

Many are burnt to death by having petrol or paraffin poured over them and set ablaze. Others are shot or strangled. The United Nations estimates that at least 255 women died in honour-related killings in Kurdistan, home to one fifth of Iraqis, in the first six months of 2007 alone.

The murder of women who are deemed to have disobeyed traditional codes of morality is even more common in the rest of Iraq where government authority has broken down since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

A surprising reason explaining the massive increase in the number of honour killings is the availability of cheap mobile phones able to take pictures. Men photograph themselves making love to their girlfriends and pass the pictures to their friends. This often turns out to be a lethal act of bravado in a society where premarital or extra-marital sex justifies killing.

The first known case of sex recorded on a mobile leading to murder was in 2004. Film of a boy making love with a 17-year-old girl circulated in the Kurdish capital, Arbil. Two days later she was killed by her family and a week later he was murdered by his.

Continue reading ‘How picture phones have fuelled frenzy of honour killing in Iraq’ »

BAQUBA, May 15 (IPS) - Farmers in the Diyala province in Iraq have been hit by just about every crisis possible. First the security disaster dried up supplies and markets, then lack of electricity cut irrigation, and now comes a drying up of water resources.

Nothing now seems more difficult in Iraq than the business of farming.

“The shortage of water is the biggest threat that Iraqi agriculture has ever faced,” an employee in the directorate-general of irrigation for Diyala province, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. “It threatens not only food but also employment in this city (Baquba, capital of the province).

“The shortage of water can be ascribed to the shortage of rain and snow at the main sources,” the employee at the irrigation centre said.

Many farmers say that they fear that the northern Kurdish-controlled region of Iraq is facing a dry 2008. The mountains there, besides the mountains of southwest Iran and southern Turkey, form a large source of water for Iraq.

The government is doing little to help people over this crisis. “The directorate is impotent and can give nothing to the farmers,” the irrigation centre employee said. “Hundreds of thousands of acres are now desolate, and thousands of people jobless.”

Most villagers work in farming, and now that farming no more sustains people as it did, life there is badly hit. Agriculture in this area kept Iraq supplied, and also produced enough for exports. But now farmers sometimes have a hard time feeding themselves.

“The majority of our village farmers have quit and the rest will follow,” farmer Nasir Ibrahim told IPS. “This is because of obstacles like security, displacement, water shortage, lack of seeds, and lack of backing on the part of the ministry.

“Farming is our source of our living; it’s our job. We used to live in the village; we cannot live in the city to work in offices, even though so many farmers have become policemen.”

The degraded security situation in the province has left farmers with the option only of selling their fruit and vegetables in smaller markets, because accessing the central market has become too dangerous.

Continue reading ‘IRAQ: Nature Adds to Occupation Blows’ »

Weeks of fighting have shut off many essential services in the Shia neighbourhood.

Living conditions in Sadr City, already one of Baghdad’s most impoverished slums, have deteriorated sharply following weeks of fighting between Shia militiamen and United States-backed Iraqi troops that has killed hundreds, according to Iraqi lawmakers.

“The situation has deteriorated significantly because most of the services have been stopped,” said Aliyah Nassif Jassim, a member of parliament from the Iraqia bloc, who recently visited the district as part of a parliamentary delegation. “Many civilian homes have been destroyed as a result of the air strikes and the military operations.”

A fragile four-day ceasefire agreement between radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the Iraqi government signed on May 12 has reduced but not halted fighting in the area, a Shia neighbourhood run by Sadr militiamen. The US military has maintained that Iranian fighters are supporting Sadr loyalists there. Iran has denied having a military presence in Iraq.

Salih al-Agili, an MP loyal to Sadr who lives in Sadr City, said more than 100 houses have been destroyed by the continuous skirmishing and air strikes since the outbreak of hostilities more than a month ago.

Continue reading ‘Sadr City Conditions Worsen’ »

Karbala, May 14, (VOI)- 12-year-old Waad was not the only child selling cloth rugs for drivers at a traffic light in the Shiite sacred city of Karbala. Scores of boys and girls his age stand near traffic lights areas all over Iraq to do same.

No sooner had the traffic policeman stopped the traffic movement than Waad rushed to offer drivers his goods for sale.

“My father died in an explosion a year ago, and I was forced to go out for work to earn living for my five-member-family,” Waad told Aswat al-Iraq- Voices of Iraq- (VOI).

The boy who knew no entertainment bitterly adds, “I come out everyday in the early morning and will not be able to return home before I earn money enough to keep our life rolling.”

Continue reading ‘Child labor, a forgotten childhood under poverty’ »

Continue reading ‘المادة 140 نهاية مهلة وبداية تساؤلات’ »

Continue reading ‘اصوات العراق - عمالة الأطفال في كربلاء، طفولة منسية تحت وطأة الفقر’ »

Continue reading ‘العراق: الحكومة تهمل قضية اللاجئين والنازحين – نائب عراقي’ »

FALLUJAH, May 12 (IPS) - Sharp increases in food prices have generated a new wave of anti-occupation and anti-U.S. sentiment in Fallujah.

“This is a country that was damned by the Americans the moment they stepped on our soil,” Burhan Jassim, a farmer from Sichir village just outside Fallujah told IPS. “This is Iraqi land that has always been blessed by Allah with the best production in quality and quantity, but now see how it has been turned into a wasteland.”

Fallujah faces this new crisis after much of the city was destroyed by U.S. military operations in 2004.

The area around Fallujah city, which lies 70 km west of Baghdad, has traditionally been one of the most agriculturally productive in Iraq. Farmers planted tomatoes and cucumbers north of Fallujah, others grew potatoes south of the city near Amiriya. Both areas had plenty of date palm trees and small fruit plantations. Now production is down to a fraction of what it was.

Farmers have been struggling with changing times. “We changed our motors from electric to diesel oil to avoid electricity failures during the UN sanctions (during the 1990s),” Raad Sammy, an agriculture engineer who has a small farm in Saqlawiya on the outskirts of Fallujah told IPS. “We used to have a minimum of 12 hours electricity per day under the programmed cut, but there is practically no electricity now. And now we also have to face lack of fuel for our pumps, and the incredible increase of fuel prices on the black market.”

The price of agricultural products has skyrocketed. “The average price for one kilogram of tomatoes is approximately one dollar,” Yasseen Kamil, a grocer in Fallujah told IPS. “This price is when there is no crisis such as Americans blocking the entrance into the city. It is naturally doubled in winter when we have to import everything from Syria and Jordan.”

Fallujah residents say the price of food now exceeds their income. The average income for government employees is 170 dollars a month, and no more than 100 dollars for labourers and salesmen.

Continue reading ‘IRAQ: Food Crisis Hits Fallujah’ »

BAQUBA, May 9 (IPS) - Water supply is drying out in what was once the agriculturally rich Diyala province north of Baghdad. Baquba, the capital city of Diyala, is now running out of water both for drinking and for irrigation.

Water supply has been hit by power failures. The central pumping station has been running short of electricity supply over the last two years.

The pumping station is located between two districts in conflict — Hwaider, which is predominantly Shia, and Jupenat, mostly Sunni. For two years now, fighting between Sunnis and Shias here has led to reduced water supply.

“The Diyala river passes by the two villages before the pumping station,” resident Zuhair Mahmood told IPS. “They try to change its stream to deprive the other of water for irrigating their farms. The diversions mean relatively little water can reach the station.”

Often, Mahmood added, “farmers irrigate their farms by setting up pumps on the banks of the river, which further contributes to reduced supply to the station.”
Some farmers have demanded that the pumping station be supplied directly from the Diyala river upstream of the conflict area.

“But this suggestion was rejected because people know that the Diyala river carries the bodies of those killed in the sectarian fighting,” said Abdul-Qadir Omran, a now unemployed trader. “It is not good for drinking, and psychologically it is unacceptable.”

People of Baquba are used to seeing bodies floating by in the Diyala river, and have long since ceased to use water from the river or fish in it.

Rising summer temperatures have made these problems worse. Many families like to use air coolers that rely heavily on water. Without some cooling it is difficult to sleep through the heat.

“Air coolers can be operated by simple generators, while air conditioners need high electricity, and there is a problem with the electricity,” Nasir Jacob, an employee with the Diyala province water authority told IPS. “People prefer to use all available water for cooling, more than even for a bath; forget washing cars or watering our gardens.”

“With the tremendous need for water in summer, pumping may not be sufficient for all residents,” Mohammed Abid, father of a large family, told IPS. “Many families spend whole nights waiting for piped water in order to fill their holding tank.”

Some have dug their own wells but this brings its own problems, an engineer at the directorate-general of water for the city told IPS on condition of anonymity.

“Water from these wells may be mixed with sewage water,” he said. “Our towns and villages have no sewage networks, and even if they exist, they are not systematic.” Locally discharged sewage often seeps into the water reserves below.

In the face of the water shortage, many farms and orchards are now desolate, and their owners jobless. Iraq now has to import food and vegetables, adding to the difficulties of local farmers.

According to an Oxfam report released last July, 70 percent of Iraqis do not have access to safe drinking water.

Inevitably, people ask why the occupation forces have not cared to ensure water and electricity supply. Just as inevitably, they get no answers.

IRAQ: Running Out of Water in Rising Heat