The great divide - The National Newspaper
She had been expelled from the majority Sunni town of Mahmudiya, she told me, after two of her sons were murdered. “The Mahdi Army are the only ones who gave me a shelter and they are protecting me and my daughters. The terrorists killed my sons with a car bomb. One of them was married and he left behind four children and I have twelve people to look after. May god bless the Mahdi Army.”
“It is like a prison inside Washash,” one man said. “Tell me what is the difference between here and prison? We are surrounded by a wall which prevents us from going to other neighbourhoods. Our sons and daughters cannot go to the schools in the Arabi neighbourhood, which is the closest area. Only this wall divides us. What is the use of this wall?
"Nobody is helping us. Nothing. No education, no electricity, no water. Our children are not going to schools anymore. The services we have are only through the help of the Sadrists, may god bless them. They are cleaning, they are helping the ones who need some money. They are bringing the kerosene and giving it to families.”
The relative calm that has followed the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad’s neighbourhoods may not hold for long. One local elder warned that “if it is going to be like this for a long time the young men will lose their minds. Maybe we will too. We can’t control our sons. It will be very bad. We can’t keep our sons quiet anymore.”
She had been expelled from the majority Sunni town of Mahmudiya, she told me, after two of her sons were murdered. “The Mahdi Army are the only ones who gave me a shelter and they are protecting me and my daughters. The terrorists killed my sons with a car bomb. One of them was married and he left behind four children and I have twelve people to look after. May god bless the Mahdi Army.”
“It is like a prison inside Washash,” one man said. “Tell me what is the difference between here and prison? We are surrounded by a wall which prevents us from going to other neighbourhoods. Our sons and daughters cannot go to the schools in the Arabi neighbourhood, which is the closest area. Only this wall divides us. What is the use of this wall?
"Nobody is helping us. Nothing. No education, no electricity, no water. Our children are not going to schools anymore. The services we have are only through the help of the Sadrists, may god bless them. They are cleaning, they are helping the ones who need some money. They are bringing the kerosene and giving it to families.”
The relative calm that has followed the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad’s neighbourhoods may not hold for long. One local elder warned that “if it is going to be like this for a long time the young men will lose their minds. Maybe we will too. We can’t control our sons. It will be very bad. We can’t keep our sons quiet anymore.”
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