Genocide Orphans Evicted As U.K.-Rwanda Asylum Treaty Goes Into Effect

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by People’s Dispatch.

Young people from Ethiopia’s northernmost State of Tigray, conscripted under threat by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), continue the attack on the Raya Kobo district of the neighboring Amhara State, six days after TPLF resumed the civil war.

In a bid to avoid mass-civilian casualties in urban fighting, the federal troops have withdrawn from Kobo city and taken defensive positions on its outskirts, the Government Communication Service said on Saturday, August 27. While leaving the door open for negotiations under the African Union (AU), the Ethiopian federal government has however stated that it will be “forced to fulfill its legal, moral and historical duty,” if the TPLF does not stop.

The five-month long humanitarian truce in the civil war, which the TPLF started in November 2020 by attacking a federal army base in Tigray’s capital Mekele, effectively collapsed on August 24 after the TPLF launched this attack on Raya Kobo.

A2—a critical highway between Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and Mekele—passes through this strategic Amharan district in the northeast of North Wollo Zone, sitting on the border with Tigray to the north and Afar to the east.

Civilians in Amhara and Afar have already suffered mass-killings, rapes, hunger and disease with the looting and destruction of food warehouses and medical facilities, when the TPLF had invaded from Tigray mid-last year.

The southward invasion of the TPLF last year had begun soon after the government declared a unilateral ceasefire and withdrew the federal troops from Tigray on June 29, 2021, to prevent disruption of the agricultural season with fighting. Food insecurity in the region had already reached emergency levels.

Stealing hundreds of UN World Food Program (WFP) trucks that were carrying food aid to Tigray over the following months, the TPLF, using conscripted forces, made rapid advances into Amhara and Afar. By August that year, Raya Kobo had fallen to TPLF. In and around Kobo city alone, the TPLF is reported to have killed over 600 civilians in September.

Advancing further south along the A2, the TPLF had captured several other Amharan cities and reached within 200 kilometers of capital Addis Ababa by the year’s end. To the east, in Afar, the TPLF had pushed south all the way to Chifra, only 50 kilometer (31 miles) from Mille district where it intended to seize the critical highway connecting land-locked Ethiopia’s capital to the port in neighboring Djibouti. However, the use of human waves to attack, which had enabled its rapid advance, had also depleted its forces, having taken heavy casualties by then.

The reversal began in December, when the combined forces of federal troops and regional militias from Afar and Amhara pushed back the TPLF. The TPLF had by then stretched far south from its base in Tigray. All along the way, it had turned the civilian population against itself by its mass-killings, looting and rapes. By the start of this year, the TPLF had been pushed back into Tigray, and encircled there.

However, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government, under enormous international pressure, ordered the troops to stand guard at Tigray’s border and not enter the state. In March 2022, the government unilaterally declared a humanitarian truce to allow for peaceful flow of much needed aid into Tigray. The TPLF reciprocated. Despite occasional clashes, the truce largely held out on the ground for the last five months. During this period, the African Union (AU) High-Representative for the Horn of Africa, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, shuffled back and forth between Addis Ababa and Mekele in preparations for peace negotiations.

Then, on August 2, the U.S. special envoy to the Horn of Africa Mike Hammer, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires in Ethiopia Tracey Jacobson and the European Union (EU) envoy Annette Weber, along with other Western diplomats, paid a visit to Mekelle and met TPLF leaders. Soon after this visit, which was criticized by the Ethiopian government, the TPLF began mobilization for war.

‘A Proxy of the U.S. and the EU’

Two days before it resumed the war by launching the attack on Raya Kobo on August 24, the TPLF had dismissed AU’s credibility and essentially called for Western intervention in an article published in the African Report on August 22. Originally published under the by-line of TPLF chairman Debretsion Gebremichael and then changed to spokesperson Getachew Reda, this article first condemned the AU for claiming “that there is hope for an imminent diplomatic breakthrough with respect to peace talks.”

After further condemning it for welcoming “the Abiy regime’s embrace of an AU-led peace process” and for calling on “the ‘TPLF’ to do the same,” the article went on to say that “the Abiy regime has made it clear that it is willing to partake only in an AU-led peace initiative… Abiy regime recoils at the possibility of the democratic West taking direct or indirect part in the mediation process.”

Criticizing the federal government’s “persistent blockage” of the U.S. and EU envoys’ visit to Tigray “until recently,” the article argued that it “reflects [the Ethiopian government’s] fear of being compelled to give peace a chance.” By not allowing the U.S. and its allies to mediate the peace process, the “Abiy regime has taken no practical steps to demonstrate a sincere commitment to peace,” it argued.

“Despite the AU Commission’s… ineffectiveness in moving the peace process forward, the rest of the international community remains reluctant to intervene on account of a well-intentioned but misplaced commitment to the idea of “African solutions for African problems,” TPLF said.

The Ethiopian government “has exploited this understandable sensitivity… by disingenuously dismissing non-African proposals for peace as a form of “neocolonialism,” the article argued. It also cautioned “the international community” against what it deemed as “Pan-African subterfuge.”

By calling for the West’s intervention, the TPLF has “finally declared the truth about itself—that it is a protégé of external forces, mainly the U.S. and the EU,” former Ethiopian diplomat and historian Mohamed Hassan told Peoples Dispatch.

With the backing of the United States, the TPLF had ruled Ethiopia as an authoritarian state for nearly three decades from 1991, when all political parties outside the ruling coalition led by itself were banned. There was no space for free press. Ethiopia during this period was disintegrated into a loose federation of ethnically organized regional states, each with militias of their own.

In 2018, mass pro-democracy protests forced the TPLF out of power at the center and reduced it to a regional force, in power in Tigray alone. Abiy Ahmed came to the fore at this time as a progressive prime minister with a vision of inclusive Ethiopian nationalism that transcends ethnic divisions.

Apart from opening up the political space within the country and allowing free-press, Ahmed’s reforms also extended to foreign policy. Signing a peace deal with Eritrea soon after becoming the prime minister, he ended the decades-long conflict with the northern neighbor the TPLF had declared, and continues to regard, as an enemy nation. Ahmed won the Nobel Peace Prize for this deal.

He also followed it up with a Tripartite Agreement in which Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia declared that the conflict between the three states had been resolved and their relations had entered a new phase based on cooperation.

Such a “resolution of the antagonism between African states and people is not appreciated by the United States and the European Union. They find this is a very bad example because, in the long term, it might weaken and eventually collapse Africa’s NATO, namely the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM),” Hassan argued in an interview with Peoples Dispatch in November last year.

At the time of these developments, the Donald Trump government in the United States, in an aberration from the norm, was disengaging from Africa, and hence ignored these threats to its imperialistic interests. However, with the Biden administration, the old foreign policy establishment returned. While waiting to take the White House after winning the election, Biden’s incoming establishment instigated the TPLF to start this war in November 2020, Hassan accused.

All diplomatic maneuvers of the Biden administration have since aimed at depicting the Ethiopian federal government, which is fighting a defensive war, as the aggressor. The United States has also announced several sanctions against Ethiopia.

Tigrayan Youth Increasingly Unwilling to Fight the TPLF’s War On Ethiopia

Despite external support, the TPLF is increasingly losing authority in Tigray itself, Hassan claims. “There are protests against TPLF everywhere in Tigray—especially in the northern parts. There are now political parties in Tigray that are opposing TPLF’s hegemony,” he said.

In a speech addressing the residents of Mekele in mid-August, barely two weeks after the visit by Western envoys, TPLF chairman Debretsion Gebremichael reflected neither political nor military confidence when he threatened: “Tigray will only be for those who are armed and fighting. Those who are capable of fighting but do not want to fight will not have a place in Tigray. In the future, they will lack something. They will not have equal rights as those who joined the fighting. We are working on regulation.”

Such a threat, coming when the practice of conscription including of child soldiers has already been in place, reflects an increasing refusal of the Tigrayan youth to fight the TPLF’s war.

After interviewing 15,000 surrendered and captured Tigrayan fighters at a camp in Chifra, Afar, in March and April this year, Ann Fitz-Gerald, the director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs, wrote in her research paper:

“The only alternatives to recruitment.. were to be fined, ‘see bad come to their family,’ and have their family members, no matter what age, be imprisoned. One female fighter justified her decision to put herself forward based on her desire to protect her brother, who required medical treatment; another respondent who had young children described how the special forces waited for him at his workplace the next day after having expressed his preference not to join the force due to his young children and his ill wife. When he tried to run from the paramilitary members, he was shot at and had no option but to hand himself over and join the force.”

The surrendered fighters reported receiving medical attention and decent treatment after putting down their arms and “confirmed that the [Ethiopian National Defense Force] ENDF soldiers who staff the Awash Basin center eat the same food as the captured/surrendered fighters and in the same dining area.”

The TPLF, on the other hand, had “instructed [them] to take their own lives before capture.” Not having done so, these surrendered and captured forces are unable to return to Tigray where their lives are at risk. With another round of recruitment underway during the truce period this year, thousands of Tigrayan civilians have been fleeing the state over the last months to escape conscription. Hundreds caught in the attempt have been detained and arrested by the TPLF.

Nevertheless, the TPLF managed to force considerable conscriptions, as evident in the waves of youth attacking Raya Kobo. Kobo’s main police station was the center where most of the TPLF fighters interviewed by Fitz-Gerald had surrendered after its attack last year was beaten back.

“The TPLF is not a rational organization. They are using human waves as cannon fodder, sending tens of thousands of Tigrayan youth to death with nothing to be gained. They have no regard for the right to life of the people in Tigray,” Hassan said.

TPLF Depriving Tigrayans of Food

As much as 83 percent of the population in Tigray is food insecure, according to a report by the WFP in January this year. Over 60 percent of pregnant or lactating women in the state are malnourished and most people are dependent on food aid for survival.

Under these grave circumstances, soon after the TPLF resumed war on August 24, “World Food Program warehouse in Mekelle, capital of the Tigray region, was forcibly entered by Tigray forces, who took 12 full fuel trucks and tankers with 570,000 liters of fuel,” said Stephane Dujarric, chief spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

“Millions will starve if we do not have fuel to deliver food. This is OUTRAGEOUS and DISGRACEFUL. We demand return of this fuel NOW,” tweeted WFP’s Executive Director David Beasley.

“These storages of food stuff and fuel are supposed to be used to help humanitarian assistance for the peaceful population of Tigray, which is suffering from different man-made and natural calamities,” said Russian Ambassador to Ethiopia Evgeny Terekhin on August 25.

“I cannot imagine anybody in his senses in the international community supporting such deeds… Of course, I understand that certain sides will try to refrain from condemning, but… everybody will understand… what is happening,” he added.

“The U.S. joins the UN in expressing concern about 12 fuel trucks that have been seized by the TPLF,” the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs said in a tweet. “The fuel is intended for the delivery of essential life-saving humanitarian assistance & we condemn any actions that deprive humanitarian assistance from reaching Ethiopians in need.”

DUHOK, Iraqi Kurdistan—On a warm afternoon, 30-year-old Vian Ramo walked along an unpaved road inside an informal housing settlement in Sharya, a town in the Duhok province. Wearing a denim shirt, black T-shirt and pants, alongwith a little smile on her face, her wide-open hazel eyes had her looking alert and slightly disoriented.

She has been displaced with her husband and two children, ages 6 and 9, ever since 2014. That is when the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) seized Sinjar, a town inside a district of the same name that is home to the ethno-religious Yazidi minority group in northern Iraq. That forced 300,000 Yazidis to flee their homes en masse, facing genocide from the extremist group.

“That night, our neighbors suddenly woke us up saying ‘They [ISIS] are coming to attack us,’” the 30-year-old recounted to Toward Freedom about the day when the group invaded their town after capturing Mosul just two months prior. “I saw many dead bodies then. ISIS forces were in front of us. We left everything behind, jumped in our car and escaped.”

After driving toward the Syrian border in an attempt to take refuge, the four family members ran into unidentified militants who opened fire, pushing them back. Then their car got a flat tire, prompting them to walk to the mountains, north of Sinjar. They stayed for five days without food, water and adequate clothing.

From there, they made another escape through a safe corridor opened by fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Syrian Kurdish forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters. One neighbor gave them a ride in his sport-utility vehicle into Syria to then re-enter Iraq and seek safety in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) in the north.

“It’s very difficult for us seeing our people driven out once more,” Ramo sighed, referring to the recent wave of displacement caused by fighting in Sinjar. “It takes us back to those dark, unsettling days.”

In August 2014, the Islamic State swept through northern Iraq, launching a genocidal campaign involving murder, abduction, rape and enslavement, resulting in some 300,000 Yazidis being displaced from their heartland of Sinjar, which spans 2,928 square kilometers (1,131 square miles) in northern Iraq. ISIS considers Yazidis to be apostates—or those who had renounced or abandoned a religion—for following a faith that is similar to Zoroastrianism, a monotheistic religion that originated in Iran.

Yazidis are an ethno-religious community indigenous to Kurdistan, which includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. They have settled predominantly in northern Iraq. Many Yazidis claim they are a religious sub-group of the Kurds, while others reject the Kurdish identity, identifying themselves as a separate ethno-religious group. Yazidis have endured persecution at the hands of Arabs, Persians, Turks and Sunni Kurds for their often-misinterpreted beliefs. Though their original language is related to the Iranic language of Kurdish, many also speak Arabic, given their proximity to Arab neighborhoods and Ba’athist Arabization campaigns. They share a strong connection to their lands in northern Iraq, especially around their main temple in Lalish, the holiest site of the Yazidi faith.

‘When You Have Nothing, You Always Think About Tomorrow’

After staying early on in different unfinished buildings in the Duhok area, Ramo now lives with her family in a one-room concrete house they rent in an informal settlement in Sharya. The structure originally contained no kitchen and the bathroom is outside. The family created a kitchen inside the house using a lightweight panel as a ceiling. Her husband doesn’t have a degree and works as a day laborer. She had never graduated because they fled Sinjar when she was still in high school. That keeps her from finding work, too.

Being on a low, unstable income—and having both kids in school—makes it hard for the couple to make ends meet.

Sometimes, they don’t have enough food to feed their children. Occasionally, they had borrowed money from their neighbors to buy proper clothes for the two and paid them back when they were able.

“We’re barely coping. All Yazidis here suffer from poverty,” the longtime displaced woman complained. “When you have nothing, you always think about tomorrow and how you’re going to pay the rent and bills.” She wishes one day she can resume and finish her studies, then do a degree in nursing or pharmacy and find a secure job.

On the other hand, going back to Sinjar is not an option for Ramo right now.

“ISIS bombed our home—we don’t have a place to stay there,” she said. “If there was reconstruction and security, it would be okay for us to return.”

Then she added without hesitation, her voice sinking low, “There’s no sign that Sinjar will be safe any time soon.”

Thousands Displaced Amid Years of Fighting

Heavy clashes occurred May 2 and May 3 in Sinjar between the Iraqi army and the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) forces as well as Ezidxane Security Forces in the Sinune sub-district of Sinjar over their ties with PKK. That escalation led to a displacement of more than 10,000 people from the district, this being the second or third time they have been pushed out of their homes. In total, 300,000 Yazidi IDPs have fled to Iraqi Kurdistan since 2014.

Since May 2, dozens of people in the Sinjar district have held demonstrations, demanding both an end to the fighting and for armed groups to evacuate towns, as the unstable security situation in the area prevents families from returning to their homeland.

Two-thirds of Sinjar’s population have been stuck in limbo, many of them reluctant to return from camps in KRI, even after ISIS was defeated. Meanwhile, others have gone back in recent years, despite the security risks and challenges they are confronted with at home, such as damaged infrastructure, minimal services, limited livelihood opportunities and little government support.

Amid the chaos, a group of Yazidi women can be found learning skills at the Enterprise & Training Center (ETC) run by the Free Yezidi Foundation (FYF)—a non-profit, humanitarian civil-society organization—in Khanke town, near Duhok. The center mainly teaches crafts, artisan textile production, carpet weaving, and baking skills, along with basic business management and business mathematics. About 100 Yezidi women are trained each year in baking, for instance.

Sitting among the women was Amira Salah, who had just taken part in a knitting session. The 34-year-old came forward quietly, dressed in black pants along with a blue blouse dotted with pink polka dots. She limped with a limb disabled since birth to a different room at the other end of the building.

She and her family are among the thousands of Yazidis who were pushed out of their place of origin in 2014. Their apartment building in Sinjar was destroyed during the ISIS invasion.

“Our home is in ruins until now,” the young woman uttered, lowering her head and skipping instead to recount about her arrival in Khanke, making it obvious to this reporter she was not keen to talk about the ordeal she and her loved ones experienced when the Islamic State attacked the area of Sinjar.

After taking shelter in different places around Khanke, Salah has lived with her mother and two sisters in Khanke camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) for the last three years.

Like in all camps, living conditions in Khanke are dire. Water supply is inadequate, running every two or three days. Power outages are common, with IDPs staying without electricity for one, two or three days in a row. Dwelling in a 4-meter by 2-meter (13-foot by 6.5-foot) nylon tent, the family is exposed to extreme temperatures in summer as well as in winter.

Only primary healthcare is provided, so the 34-year-old—who has difficulty walking—must find medical assistance outside the camp, which can be unaffordable. “I have to travel to Duhok to get better service and for regular checkups,” she said. “The same goes for one of my sisters who has a speech impairment and my mum who suffers stomach-related issues.”

Managing such a precarious situation for an extended period has been proving for the family of four. “We, Yazidi people, have been helping each other because nobody has helped us during all this time,” Salah emphasized.

Illiterate and unable to access basic education at her age, she recently completed a knitting course at FYF’s training center. From time to time, she now takes home a small amount from selling knitted toys and animals, just to contribute to her family. She is looking for any kind of work she can do to help out more. Her youngest sister, 25, working as a nurse, is the only one at home who has a regular job, earning around $400 a month.

At the moment, Salah ruled out the possibility of returning to her hometown. “I don’t expect Sinjar to be rebuilt, so that people can go back,” she said. Then, without hesitation, she wished aloud, “If only security was restored… at least!”

Then Salah concluded in a gloomy tone, “Sinjar is in such a state that makes you want to stay here.”

Post-ISIS, Return and Reconstruction In Limbo

Eight years after the brutal rule of ISIS, much of Sinjar remains in rubble. It lacks schools and hospitals, infrastructure, and other basic services. Thus, jobs are nowhere to be found.

The town lies in disputed mountainous lands in northwestern Iraq between the jurisdictions of the central Iraqi government and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). Sinjar’s security situation remains complex due to the presence of different competing armed groups, including the Iraqi military, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the local YBS force and Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).

Although the federal government and the KRG signed an agreement in October 2020 to preserve security in Sinjar—with Iraqi forces working in coordination with KRG forces—little progress has been made toward implementing it. Moreover, members of the Yazidi community criticized the deal for not including their input.

On top of it, Turkey frequently conducts ground and air offensives in Sinjar against alleged locations of the PKK, which Ankara has labeled a terrorist organization for claiming it has a right to inhabit the southeast portion of Turkey. A U.S. State Department report published early this month stated the presence of PKK-affiliated armed forces—as well as Turkish airstrikes—prevents Yazidi IDPs from going back to the affected areas.

An International Crisis Group report released at the end of May showed the Sinjar agreement has failed to stabilize the area, and that leaving the situation as it is will attract more violence and displacement.

In a meeting with representatives from Sinjar town, a week after May’s confrontations, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi said the Sinjar agreement should be implemented. The premier also called on relevant authorities to accelerate the completion of procedures for establishing the Sinjar Reconstruction Fund.

Despite Iraqi forces and the YBS group reaching a ceasefire in early May, Yazidis fear fighting could resume at any time unless a radical solution is found to bring security to the contested district.

A local official affiliated with the KRG declined to discuss the situation of Sinjar after several attempts, and a spokesperson for the Joint Operations Command from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense could not be reached for comment.

‘Camp Life Is Miserable’

Hewan Omer, FYF Country Director in Iraq, pointed out lack of safety is the most crucial deterrent against the return of Sinjaris. “There is no governmental entity that locals can rely on. Only militias fighting against each other. People don’t feel safe in Sinjar,” she told Toward Freedom, adding that, because of the ongoing insecurity, many in the community cannot find some reassurance that a genocide will not be repeated.

Hinting at non-functional public water and electrical networks, the country director expressed disappointment about the government inaction in the area, which has hindered Yazidis from rebuilding their lives after years of tragedy, destruction and insecurity.

“We haven’t seen any tangible steps taken to improve security or restore basic services, to incentivize the return of displaced families,” she said.

Khalida Nawaf, ETC’s manager at FYF in Khanke, implied widespread concern exists among Yazidis that the underlying cycle of violence may produce some terrible events again. “None of us can forget that black day when ISIS assaulted Sinjar,” she told Toward Freedom. “Nothing’s been done on the ground, Sinjar is unsafe. We fear another August 3, 2014, could happen.”

Nawaf estimated about 80 percent of Sinjaris have mental health issues as a result of the violence they experienced.

A prominent Yezidi civil-society organization, FYF provides humanitarian support to Yazidi civilians, with a special focus on trauma recovery and psychological services, economic empowerment, community reintegration, and education.

Nawaf noted that both the KRG and the government in Baghdad should coordinate efforts to provide security in the area, proceed with the reconstruction of civilian houses and infrastructure, increase educational establishments, and ensure public services operate normally.

Hanging out in front of a garage in Khanke was Zaid Hamu, 33. He donned a white T-shirt and black trousers, along with a baseball cap.

With his spouse and four kids—between the ages of 18 months and 10 years—the Yazidi man continues to live in displacement after they ran from the ISIS aggression in 2014. “It’s been so long. Eight years!” he exclaimed, talking to Toward Freedom. Then the conversation turned to his fellow Sinjaris, who crossed into Kurdistan last month in the wake of fresh clashes. “Things are going from bad to worse.”

At the time he and his family fled their home in Sinjar, most villagers left in the early morning. He recounted they headed on foot to the southern side of the mountains. They spent nine days there until a corridor was cleared for the evacuation of Yazidi civilians into Syria, enabling them to reach the neighboring Kurdish region and settle in the Khanke IDP camp.

“Our house is still there, but looks like an empty wreck,” the young man said in a bitter tone. “ISIS fighters ransacked it and took everything.”

Like many Yazidis, Hamu is displaced in his own country. A former interpreter for an NGO, he is currently jobless while his wife takes care of the children, meaning no income whatsoever.

“Camp life is miserable,” he uttered. IDPs deal with unbearably hot summers and freezing winters inside tented dwellings. A consistent supply of water and electricity can’t be counted on. The father of four also criticized the quality of education, saying the school where his kids are enrolled is ill-equipped, with overcrowded classrooms. Rotational learning restricts pupils to only attend three days a week.

Then again, restarting his life in Sinjar is unthinkable. “It’s not safe there. There aren’t even the most basic services,” the 33-year-old decried. He held the Iraqi government responsible for doing nothing to secure the area or incentivize the return of displaced Yazidi to their native land.

Looking to seek asylum, he hopes to see himself in any other country. “Nothing holds me here. I’ve had enough,” Hamu said, his face appearing worn out. “I want a better future for my family.”

Harsh Living Conditions in Camps

An estimated 300,000 Yazidis remain displaced in Iraq’s Kurdistan region. According to the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) in Iraq, fewer than 136,000 individuals are scattered across 15 IDP camps in the governorates (provinces) of Duhok and Nineveh, while another 195,000 live independently in the area.

Inside camps, the majority still live in tents, which makes them vulnerable to harsh weather conditions and fire hazards. They often have little to no access to running water, electricity, heating and sanitation.

Minimal health services are provided, while non-basic medical treatment only is available a few miles away in Duhok. However, many are unable to cover transportation costs to get there.

Schools in IDP camps typically suffer from overcrowding, a lack of basic facilities and qualified teaching staff, which means many schools have to run multiple shifts. Understaffing is supplemented by untrained community members, working as volunteers or for a small stipend, further compromising educational standards.

IDPs rely on the minimum food assistance provided by the KRG and humanitarian organizations. The World Food Program (WFP) distributes food aid in the form of monthly food baskets or cash transfers ranging between 10,000-20,000 Iraqi dinar per month (USD $7 to $14) for each person. However, because of funding gaps, the impact of climate change on global food production, and inflation’s impact on food prices, WFP has stopped financial assistance to all displaced people starting this month. That is, except for in the case of families that can demonstrate their poverty.

For the majority of IDPs who reside outside camps in informal settlements and in urban areas, humanitarian assistance is even less available. They face difficulties in accessing employment that would enable them to meet their basic costs of living, and many can only find casual work, putting large numbers at risk of eviction and/or forcing them to relocate to IDP camps, according to the UNHCR.

FYF’s Omer explained that low education levels, missing documentation, and lack of work experience in sectors other than construction and agriculture limit their prospects. IDPs generally operate fruit and vegetable shops, work on construction sites, or do seasonal farm work for a wage of 7,000 Iraqi dinar (USD $4.8) per day.

Obstacles to Returning Home

Throughout the ISIS occupation, 80 percent of public infrastructure and 70 percent of civilian homes in Sinjar were destroyed, according to a report by the UNHCR and REACH, a nonprofit organization that analyzes data on crises, disasters, and displacement.

Last year, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) provided cash assistance to 1,400 families to facilitate the return process.

Beyond that, international organizations have done little to help communities return, whether by repairing basic infrastructure, supporting the local government to ensure provision of essential services, or assisting families in finding sustainable solutions to live in better conditions.

A recent Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) report found ongoing challenges in accessing housing, land and property rights. Damaged infrastructure, lack of habitable housing, insecurity, and property disputes inhibit displaced families’ return and increase social tensions in Sinjar.

According to the study, 64 percent of IDPs from Sinjar claimed their homes were heavily damaged. For 70 percent, lack of housing and rent increases are the primary source of social conflict among those who have returned. The study relayed 92 percent of returnees reported continued access to their property. In contrast, 99 percent of those who applied for government compensation have not received any funding for damaged property.

NRC urged Baghdad and the KRG to prioritize the rehabilitation of infrastructure and the restoration of services to allow for safe housing, land, and property, alongside public infrastructure. It also called on international development donors to invest in strengthening access to housing, land and property rights to support families in finding solutions for a life back in Sinjar.

“As long as no concrete action is taken in their place of origin, and the situation gets better, most displaced Yazidis are bound to stay here,” FYF’s Omer said, exhaling deeply.

Alessandra Bajec is a freelance journalist specializing in West Asia and North Africa. Between 2010 and 2011, she lived in Palestine. Then she was based in Cairo from 2013 to 2017. Since 2018, Bajec has lived in Tunis.

People have lived on both the Zimbabwean and Zambian sides of the Zambezi River of southern Africa for centuries. Their lives revolved around the river. They say their god, the nyami nyami, lives in its waters.

The Zambezi is Africa’s fourth-longest river, flowing from northwestern Zambia into Angola and Botswana, then forming the Zimbabwe-Zambia border, before it empties into the Indian Ocean off Mozambique to the east. For centuries, the people fished in this river, fetched drinking water from it and harvested crops twice a year on its fertile floodplains. As a result, they call themselves basilwizi, which, in their Tonga language, means the “people of the great river.”

Now, they are only basilwizi in name, with no water to drink or with which to grow crops. They need a government permit to fish on Lake Kariba or on the river further upstream.

“We are just here, thirsty,” BaTonga Chief Saba told Toward Freedom, as he stood in Binga District, Matabeleland North Province located in western Zimbabwe, some 800 km (497 miles) from the capital city of Harare. “Some of us drill boreholes, but even if they drill up to 100 meters (109 yards), they frequently hit dry holes. Where they are lucky to get [water], it will be salty due to the abundance of coal in this area. Come the dry season, the boreholes dry up. Even the hot springs we have yield salty water, as well.”

One of 17 BaTonga chiefs in the Binga District, Chief Saba’s parents were among the approximately 23,000 BaTonga villagers displaced from the southern bank of the Zambezi between 1957 and 1962. That made way for the construction of Lake Kariba, the world’s biggest dam constructed by humans. In Zambia, 34,000 people of the BaTonga tribe were removed, too. The 23,000 BaTonga people were scattered in four arid districts in Zimbabwe: Binga, Gokwe North, Hwange and Nyami Nyami. Their population has grown to about 300,000, while displaced in Zambia number 1.3 million.

‘Fish Is Our Gold’

The dam generates electricity that lights up the country. It is home to tourism facilities, as well as to the annual tiger-fishing contest that attracts tourists from southern Africa and beyond. However, the evictees are ranked among the country’s poorest, and trace their poverty to their removal from the fertile shores of the river and to their resettlement in arid places.

“We are people of the great river, so we demand access to it,” Chief Saba said. “Fish is our gold, so we want our people to have special clearance to fish on the lake as their fathers, grandfathers and ancestors used to do.”

Saba added his people want the government and its development partners to build irrigation to help alleviate poverty.

The Zimbabwe Peace Project, a local non-governmental organization (NGO), citing the 2017 Poverty Report by the Zimbabwe Statistical Agency, said Binga was the second highest impoverished district at between 38.4 percent and 51.2 percent. About 50.1 percent of households were classified as “extremely poor.” Food insecurity, as well as lack of access to health, educational and transport services, are rife.

The government is building a $48 million, 42-kilometer (26-mile) pipeline from Deka on the Zambezi River to transport water to cool a 1,500-megawatt, coal-fired power plant at Hwange.

“The pipeline is too far from us,” Chief Saba said. “If we were closer, perhaps we stood a chance of getting some water at communal water points that authorities always set up along such pieces of infrastructure to enable communities to benefit from exploitation of local resources. Because we don’t have reliable water sources, the only alternative is the Zambezi.”

Natural Resources Under Foot

Binga is situated in a coal-rich area. The southern African nation’s biggest coal mine, Hwange Colliery Company Limited, and about a dozen smaller ones, populate Hwange District, Binga’s southwestern neighbor.

The district is blessed with a number of natural resources, such as coal, diamond, gold, lithium, tantalite, timber, wildlife and the Zambezi River. However, the only resources being extracted are coal, timber, wildlife and fish.

In terms of fishing however, a Zimbabwean named Prince Mathe argued in a September 2021 paper, “Vulnerability and Contribution of Fisheries as a Livelihood Strategy in Kani ward, Binga, Zimbabwe,” that the cost of permits limits the BaTonga people’s access to the river and the lake.

“…If one is found fishing illegally, he or she pays a fine worth [sic] $1,500 … failure to do that, they face prosecution.”

The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority has fixed the fishing permit for people using commercial motorized boats at $1,000 yearly and $300 for those using canoes.

‘Treated Like Animals’ 

About 57 percent of the land that now sits at the bottom of the lake was arable and owned by the BaTonga, says a Zimbabwean NGO that champions BaTonga rights, Basilwizi Trust, quoting a World Commission on Dams report on Lake Kariba. The document adds that the BaTonga were “‘treated like animals or things rounded up and packed in lorries’ to be moved to their new destination … The racist attitude of the time did not consider the resettlement of Africans as a problem.”

Basilwizi Trust adds:

“The dam’s poor record of resettlement left a huge black mark on the project, which has never been adequately addressed by the parties responsible for building the dam. The colonial and post-independence governments and the major funders and beneficiaries of the dam continue to neglect the relocated people on the Zimbabwean side of the reservoir.”

The trust has demanded reparations in the form of sustainable development programs/projects for the BaTonga and Korekore people in Nyami Nyami District. (While nyami nyami is the name of the BaTonga people’s god, a Zimbabwean district where other BaTonga were forced to move to is called Nyami Nyami. In that district, the BaTonga are called the Korekore people, while in Binga district they are called BaTonga.) The Zambian government compensated each displaced person with $270, but the BaTonga of Zimbabwe were not paid.

A recent paper, “Local knowledge and practices among Tonga people in Zambia and Zimbabwe: A review,” states that prior to the construction of Lake Kariba, the community mainly practiced flood retreat cultivation in their incelela, small plots of land along the riverbank. The mineral-rich soils combined with their system allowed the population to cover their basic needs and harvest twice a year. Now, poverty is widespread among the people.

“Although the dam was built to provide electricity in Zambia and Zimbabwe, up to today, Tonga people have scarce access to electricity,” it adds.

Bringing Water to the People

At Dopota Village in Chief Nelukoba’s area in Hwange District, the grievances are the same as those in Binga.

“We have a solar powered borehole in the village, but it is often without water,” Evans Shoko, head of Dopota Village, told Toward Freedom. “We rely on another one that was drilled in 1968 to serve Dopota Primary School, but it is also unreliable due to the general dryness in the area.”

One garden serves 22 out of 36 households in the village. The garden provides just enough vegetables to prepare relish and small parcels to sell to raise just enough money for isigayo. In the local Ndebele language, isigayo is the payment for milling maize, the country’s staple food.

“It is not transformative at all,” Shoko said, “so what the people want is water from the Zambezi for drinking and to support irrigation schemes.”

Shoko’s village is about 5 km (3.1 miles) away from the Deka-Hwange pipeline, so he hoped authorities would set up a point from which villagers could draw water.

The village is less than 6 miles from Hwange National Park. Shoko said animals, especially elephants, stray out of the park to look for food and water in the village, resulting in damaged crops.

“Sometimes they end up killing people.”

Matabeleland North Provincial Minister Richard Moyo said the government is aware of the challenges the BaTonga face.

“We are drilling boreholes in the district and pushing ahead with the Bulawayo Kraal Irrigation Scheme, which will see up to 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) being put under irrigation,” he told Toward Freedom. The Bulawayo Kraal is about 10 km (6.2 miles) south of the Zambezi River in Binga District.

Moyo said, as of October, the province had drilled about three boreholes out of 17, which are earmarked for chiefs’ homesteads. Last year, President Emmerson Mnangagwa allocated a fishing rig to each of the district’s 17 chiefs, Moyo added. Through this program, the people are able to fish, obtain relish and sell surpluses. Plus, jobs operating the rigs have been created. Moyo said some people in the district would benefit from the Gwayi-Shangani Dam project because of nutritional gardens and irrigation schemes.

“But the issue is not just about water,” Moyo said. “We are building roads, the Binga airstrip is now operational after the government rehabilitated it, so tourism is picking up. Binga Polytechnic [College] enrolled its first intake [of students] last year… So, yes, there are challenges, but we are not leaving Binga behind.”

Thulani Mpofu is a Zimbabwean freelance journalist based in Harare, the capital.  He has an interest in development issues.  Some of his work has appeared in Canada-headquartered Natural Gas World, Thailand-based Tobacco Asia and South Africa’s Farmers Weekly.