The American- and British-led coalition invaded Saddam Hussein’s Iraq five years ago, bringing down Saddam’s hated dictatorial regime within a month. In their wake, Iraq has become the stage for a new drama: violence between Americans and Iraqis, Shia and Sunni Muslims, supporters and opponents of the new Baghdad government, and among the diverse militias. There is also the violence perpetrated by Muslim radicals and Saddam loyalists, violence against women, students and academics, against religious minorities such as Christians and Yezidis. The majority of victims, now numbering many tens of thousands, are civilians who had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, at a market where a car bomb was detonated, in a neighbourhood where another faction or section of the population was striving to take control.

Where violence dominates, people flee, and in Iraq that has been seen on a massive scale. There lies more behind people being forced to flee than simply a consequence of violence: the violence is often deliberately intended to purge cities, neighbourhoods and villages of people who belong to another political faction, a different religious or ethnic group, or those who are voices of dissent. Even though the violence has abated somewhat and fewer people are losing their lives or fleeing, for many it is still too unsafe to return to Iraq. A major reason for this drop in violence is that the ethnic and sectarian cleansing has largely been achieved: after five years of violence almost no ethnically or religiously mixed districts remain in Baghdad.

More than two million Iraqis have sought refuge in neighbouring countries, mainly in Syria and Jordan, where there is almost no relief in any form for the refugees. These countries do not even acknowledge refugees as such and they restrict foreign humanitarian aid, allowing it to get through only intermittently. Most countries have now closed their borders to Iraqis or send refugees back into Iraq. Besides the two million refugees, at least as many people have been displaced within Iraq, where even less help is available. In the northern city of Kirkuk, for example, several thousand refugees have been sheltering in the local stadium for more than four years with no assistance from the Kurdish or central Iraqi governments, with all the attendant consequences: children do not go to school and people are denied any medical care.

The problem of refugees in and around Iraq is as much a political issue as a humanitarian one. The huge stream of refugees from Iraq into Syria and Jordan has also strained regional and local relations. Displaced persons within Iraq can, moreover, easily become pawns of political groupings and militias, especially if these are the only groups providing help.

Three years after the publication of ‘Why Mister, Why?’, Geert van Kesteren has compiled a new book of photographs about Iraq, this time specifically about refugees and displaced persons. ‘Baghdad Calling’is, like the earlier book, an appeal to us to snap out of our indifference or despondency, a call to our governments and the international community but also to human rights, development and relief organizations and to peace movements, an appeal to us as citizens of a freer and safer part of the world. The call is made even more forceful by the many photos in the book that were taken by Iraqis themselves, mostly using the their mobile phones’ cameras. They are images of the Iraq they had to leave behind, of their homes and neighbourhoods, of their normal lives that became impossible, of what they cherished, or of the violence that forced them to flee.
Baghdad Calling makes an urgent appeal to us. For years to come, Iraqi refugees and displaced persons will need political and humanitarian support to ensure that Iraq develops into a country where people’s safety and welfare is guaranteed, a place where children can once again attend school, where a solid basis for people’s lives is restored. This support is needed to prevent refugees and displaced persons becoming playthings of militias and politicians, being tainted by embitterment and vengefulness and thus, unwittingly and unintentionally, becoming potential protagonists in new conflicts.
Baghdad is calling, and indifference does not become us.

Jan Gruiters (Director, IKV Pax Christi)

on behalf of the Dutch ‘Iraq Coalition’ (Amnesty International, Cordaid, Hivos, IKV Pax Christi and the Netherlands Refugee Foundation)