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Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka ęape-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basin Ozeti

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party that holds sway in the Southern part of Iraqi Kurdistan, owns the property, and some of the profits from the village go toward the upkeep of the local militia, or peshmerga. With the rest, Mr. Ahmed plans to build morę cabins and houses for visitors wishing to stay for a month or morę. The 20 visi-tors from Baghdad unanimously say they came here because it is safe.

An engineering student from a wealthy district of Baghdad, Mohammed Jamal, says he was kidnapp>ed by bandits earlier this year. They released him only when his father paid a ransom of $10,000. 'The shock was too much for him,” Mr. Jamal says. "He pac-ked the whole family off and told us to spend two weeks in Dokan. He's back at home making surę the house doesn't get looted."

He says theres no shortage of tourist destinations much closer to home - Habaniyya lakę, for example. The only trouble is, he says, Habaniyya is now a resort for U.S. troops and is out of bounds for ordinary Iraqis. Saddam once got al1 the best places in Iraq. Now, some Iraqis grumble that the Americans get their pick. Even at Dokan lakę, U.S. soldiers in civilian clothes use a beach a hundred yards away from the one the Jamal family has claimed.

On the hill above them stands the Ashura, the most expensive hotel in these parts. For the past three months, the U.S. Army has taken it over. In the plush lobby filled with the musie of Beyonce Knowles, a receptionist says he has no idea when the hotel manager will be free.

"Hes in a meeting with a U.S. delegation," he explains. 'Try another day."

Increasing numbers of Syrian Kurdish refugees in north

IRIN 9 August 2004

A refugee camp opened near the northeastem Iraqi city of Dahuk earlier this year to house Syrian Kurds is rapidly spilling out into surrounding fields as families continue to cross into northem Iraq.

The camp, 20 km north of Dahuk on the road to Zakho, was origi-nally opened in 1999 to house 200 Iraqis seeking sanctuary from Saddam Husseins ad ministra tion in the Kurdish-controlled north.

Today, according to camp authorities, there are some 47 Syrian families and 57 single men, a total of 362 people. The refugees said they left Syria due to worsening conditions. However, aid agencies say that some have also recently retumed home. With a linę of buildings set up next to one of the former Baathist administration's old mili-tary forts, the camp has accommodation for 27 families. Others are living in tents.

'The flow of refugees across the border has slowed, but shows no signs of stopping", camp director and refugee, Nawzad Hamid Abdullah told IRIN in Dahuk. "Ali refugees smuggled themselves across the border, so statistics on their numbers are not exact. But we know of 11 families who have crossed in July."

Regardless of when they arrived, the stories told by refugees are near identical. The majority said they came from in and around the eas-tem Syrian city of Qamishli located in northeastem Syria, which empted into inter-ethnic violence this March during a football match between a Syrian Kurdish team and one traditionally sup-ported by the countrys Baathists. "Inter-ethnic tensions had been on the rise sińce the beginning of the war against Saddam," said Mohamed Seyed Omar, a shepherd from Qamishli. "When Iraqi Kurds helped the Americans, we were branded traitors."

Khabat Derk was present at the match. 'They were shouting 'Death to the Kurds, long Iive Saddam, long live Fallujah," he said, referring to the central Iraqi city at the heart of the anti-Coalition insurgency. "At least three Kurds were shot dead in the stadium." The deaths led to Kurdish rioting and, on 12 March, a huge protest in Qamishli against the Syrian govemment. 'That was when the crackdown real-ly began," said Ahmed Jamil Bakir, pointing to three bullet wounds on his body he claimed to have sustained during the protest. Taken to hospital under armed guard, he said he escaped with help from a Kurdish doctor and crossed into Iraq a week later. Others had to wait longer. 'They confiscated my lorry, my only means of making money," said Haval Abdullah. "We had to sell most of what we had to raise US $300 for the smugglers.” Now sharing a sweltering plas-tic-lined tent with his wife and three children, he arrived at the camp last week.

Local authorities insist the camp is properly supplied both with elec-tricity and water, by tankers. Ali tents had fans, although a power cut had prevented them working. But refugees said they could do with morę washing facilities and that sometimes they had to wait days for a shower. "Some people wash themselves in their rooms," said one. There was generał agreement, though, that food - supplied by the local authorities - was in short supply. "We eat three times a day, but the portions are tiny," complained Feroz Muhamed Abdullah, who shares two three by four metre rooms with her husband and nine children. She cooks on the porch, using a double gas heater supplied, along with her pots, mattresses and blankets.

'The refugees do not yet have food ration cards," explained Nawzad Hamid Abdullah. "Families keep coming, and a dedsion has been madę to wait for the situation to stabilise."

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is supplying non food items to camp residents and has also registered them. Two families, including Mrs Abdullah s, are in need of medical attention. At least two of her children were suffe-ring from advanced muscular dystrophy. "We were denied care in Syria," said her husband Ahmed Mohamed Ramadan. "Here at least we can use the hospital." The camp has also been visited by local doctors and a mobile medical team from intemational NGOs. Some

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