WashPost: Thousands of Iraqis Flee To Avoid Spread of Violence

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/28/AR2006032801963.html

Thousands of Iraqis Flee to Avoid Spread Of Violence
Fear, Threats Push Muslim Sects Apart

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 29, 2006; A01

BAGHDAD, March 28 -- Sectarian violence has displaced more than 25,000 Iraqis since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine, a U.N.-affiliated agency said Tuesday, and shelters and tent cities are springing up across central and southern Iraq to house homeless Sunni and Shiite families.

The flight is continuing, according to the International Organization for Migration, which works closely with the United Nations and other groups. The result has been a population exchange as Sunni and Shiite families flee mixed communities for the safety of areas where their own sects predominate. "I definitely wouldn't say the displacement has peaked," said Dana Graber, an official of the migration agency in Amman, Jordan. "It's continuous."

- snip -

Alwan, a Shiite, traveled with his wife, four daughters and three sons this month to the almost entirely Shiite city of Najaf, where local authorities have converted a vacant hotel into a shelter for the newcomers and say they are gathering tents for an outlying camp. Iraqi newspapers on Tuesday reported tents pitched in a field outside another southern city, Nasiriyah, for Shiite families arriving there in flight from sectarian violence.

Alwan told a story that already has grown familiar since the near-destruction of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, 65 miles north of Baghdad, touched off five weeks of Shiite-Sunni bloodletting. "They told me that I should leave within 24 hours or we will all get killed," Alwan said in an interview in Najaf. "So we left everything there and took only the bare things we need to live."

MORE

as well....Sometimes when I read this stuff it takes my breath away....how can the world be so fucked up?

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

He's still wondering what the hell happened to him - what these lunatic right-wing politicians did to him.

Thanks to Bush's occupation, Baghdad's citizens are no longer afraid to travel!

:party: (This post is part of George W. Bush's GULF WAR GOOD NEWS initiative.)
rocknation

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Good one, rn

By Ahmed Rasheed
1 hour, 29 minutes ago

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Sectarian violence has displaced more than 30,000 Iraqis -- victims of gunmen who warn them to leave or die -- since a Shi'ite shrine was bombed last month, the government said on Wednesday.

The attack on the mosque in Samarra on February 22 touched off reprisals and pushed Iraq toward civil war. The bodies of hundreds of victims of communal violence have been dumped along the streets, many bound and showing signs of torture.

The bloodshed has also created a potential humanitarian crisis. Thousands of families had to flee their homes after being threatened with death because of their sect.

more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060329/wl_nm/iraq_displaced_dc;_

Well, underreported, anyway.

Bush is winning and turning the country into a democratic paradise.

interview these people on their newscasts.

Then we'll get the real story.

:sarcasm:

fleeing to their ancient family chateaus in the south of France.

Let them eat cake!

they are heading out to their local florist to buy flowers for the US troops who "liberated" them.

Get your propaganda straight!

And just what the hell is the Iraqis beef anyway? We pulled down a statue and they're still not happy.

Geez. Ingrates.

By EDWARD WONG and KIRK SEMPLE
Published: April 2, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 1 — The war in Iraq has entered a bloodier phase, with the killings of Iraqi civilians rising tremendously in daily sectarian violence while American casualties have steadily declined, spurring tens of thousands of Iraqis to flee from mixed Shiite-Sunni areas. <snip>

About 900 Iraqi civilians died violently in March, up from about 700 the month before, according to military statistics and the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent organization that tracks deaths. Meanwhile, at least 29 American troops were killed in March, the second-lowest monthly total since the war began. <snip>

The Iraqi public's reaction to the violence has been dramatic. Since the shrine bombing, 30,000 to 36,000 Iraqis have fled their homes because of sectarian violence or fear of reprisals, say officials at the International Organization for Migration, based in Geneva. The Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration estimated that at least 5,500 families have moved, with the biggest group being 1,250 families settling in the Shiite holy city of Najaf after leaving Baghdad and Sunni-dominated towns in central Iraq. The families are living with relatives or in abandoned buildings, and a crisis of food and water shortages is starting to build, officials say. <snip>

Dozens of bodies, garroted or executed with gunshots to the head, are turning up almost daily in Baghdad alone ... <snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/world/middleeast/02iraq.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5087&en=13dcaed8d59af1be&ex=1144209600

Some info + muddled analysis ...

Re: "Since the shrine bombing, 30,000 to 36,000 Iraqis have fled their homes because of sectarian violence or fear of reprisals."

Another great reminder of the effects of well-placed lies about intentions to do something right for the world in America's name, c/o Bush & Co..

These numbers are too low.

:puke: