1. Qaladiza

Qaladiza is about 130 km. west of Sulaimaniyah City, near the Iran border. The topography of the land is mountainous. The population exceeds 50,000 people Qaladiza is a rich agriculture area, and with a thriving animal husbandry background. This district has passed through many crises in the past twenty years of its long history.

In 1974, the town was bombarded by Iraqi jet fighters. Most of the buildings were destroyed and hundreds of civilians were killed and injured. Two years later (1976) after constant bombardment most of the villages surrounding Qaladiza on the border were completely destroyed.

The Iraqi government then forced the inhabitants of these villages to leave their land and live in collective towns Since 1974 people of Qaladiza have been living in indescribable conditions. After the first gulf war, the district of Qaladiza was completely destroyed and the people were forcefully evacuated to other towns, most took refuge in temporary shelters on the Iranian side of the border. After the second gulf war and the uprising of 1991, people started to return to their lands in most of the districts and rural areas.

The inhabitants started to reconstruct their houses. This process was very difficult due to the very limited resources of the people. In the beginning, the people of Qaladiza were encouraged to return to their town with promises from international humanitarian organisations. The amount of damage to most parts of Iraqi Kurdistan was unknown at that time.

When the damage was estimated the organisations realised the scale of the problem and could not fulfil what they had promised and their activities were limited. Now, after seven years of international sanctions and the Iraqi regime's blockade on Kurdistan the situation has worsened.

The infrastructure of this district has deteriorated and the people are suffering as a result of this. The lack of shelters, basic services, education, health facilities and poverty are the reasons that force people to leave their town. Providing shelters to the people of Qaladiza is one of our main priorities as without accommodation it is difficult to improve the quality of life of such vulnerable people.

2. Penjwin

Penjwin is a border town that has been virtually destroyed over the years. It is one of the most disadvantaged towns in the region. In the early eighties it became a battlefield during the Iraq-Iran war and later on was depopulated and destroyed by the Iraqi regime in 1988. In the last six years the people have started to return to the town. Up till now hundreds of families still live in pitiful conditions without decent shelters, public services, roads and other necessary facilities.

3. Qaradagh

Qaradagh is a mountainous area, which is situated about 70Kms southeast of Sulaimaniyah City. The area includes 84 villages. The main economical activities in these villages are cultivation and animal husbandry. This area faced depopulation and chemical bombardment during the ANFAL operations by the Iraqi government in 1988.

The survivors were forcibly deported to collective towns in other areas around Sulaimaniyah. In 1991 after the Gulf War, families returning to their homes, found scenes of devastation. Houses, schools, shops, hospitals and clinics were all destroyed. Despite help from the UN agencies, international and local NGOs, the majority of villages still lie in ruins.

4. Halabja

Halabja, which once had a thriving population of 70,000, is located in Iraq's Sulaimaniyah province, some 260 kms Northeast of Baghdad. Towards the east just 11 Kms away lies the Iranian border.

Halabja was a prosperous market town whose residents were mostly farmers or cattle breeders On Thursday March 17 and Friday March 18 1988, Iraqi fighter planes carried out chemical bombing on Halabja. More than twenty times, the planes flew over the town dropping their deadly cargo of chemical and cluster bombs.

In every street and alley women and children rolled over one another. The sound of crying and groans rose from every house in the town. Many families who were sleeping were subjected to chemical bombing before the sun rose. In the streets and alleys of Halabja, corpses piled up over one another. Hundreds of children, playing in front of their house in the morning, were killed instantly by cyanide gases. Some children fell down at the threshold of the door of their home, and never rose again.

Along with Halabja, Khormal, Dojaileh and their surrounding villages were also chemically bombarded, but the centre of the catastrophe was Halabja. Over 6,000 people died in 48 hours, many thousand more were injured. The chemicals used in Halabja were mustard, nerve and cyanide gases, all are internationally banned weapons.

10 years after Halabja, the people are still suffering; the town still lies in ruins. Cancer is commonplace. In the labour ward, women are miscarrying. Many victims suffer from grotesque skin eruptions, crippling bone deformities, enormous malignant tumours and cases of severe psychosis.

There is surgery but no radiotherapy or chemotherapy The hospital can only afford local anaesthetic. Children's diseases have increased between 1990 and 1998. There is also evidence of wider environmental destruction including mutated animals - lethally poisonous snakes, scorpions and locusts - and vegetation.

5. Kalar

The town of Kalar is one of the district centres of the new Kirkuk governorate, located approximately 65 Kms south east of Sulaimaniyah. Initially it was formed of 4 villages, Kalar, Hama Karim, Bingird and Gazino. It is located in Garmian where the biggest ANFAL operation was carried out; most of the population either disappeared or were forcibly uprooted. After the ANFAL operation a collective town (Smood) was built near Kalar, where the victims of the operation were eventually settled.

Kalar's population amounts to 60,000, and that of Smood 40,000. Apart from Smood a small town of Bawanoor and more than 100 villages administratively belong to Kalar. Kalar is located centrally to its satellite towns and villages

6. Kirkuk

Refugees from Kirkuk The historical background to this persecution is complex, but broadly the Arabization of Iraqi Kurdistan can be traced back to 1925 when the first Oil Company was established in Kirkuk. More than 2,500 Arabs and Assyrians were brought into the area to work in the oil fields under the pretext that they were professional oil-field workers. In fact, however, it was an economically motivated colonisation.

The British Government of the day was under no illusion as to what was happening but supported the action nonetheless. This was to make sure that oil-rich Kirkuk, Mosul and the surrounding areas would fall under the authority of the Iraqi government of the period, not Sheikh Mahmoud. Between 1934 and 1936 a further 27,000 Arabs from different tribes were brought to work on the water project at Hawija. Alongside this Arabization, a systematic policy of deportation was set in motion to remove Kurdish people from their native towns and villages.

This was stepped up in 1963 when the Iraqi government started to arrest and kill the Kurdish population. 40 villages in the governorate of Kirkuk were evacuated, houses looted, native Kurds forced to move away and Arabs brought in to replace them. Names of streets and schools were changed from Kurdish to Arabic.

Between 1986 and 1988 a total of 1,278 villages were destroyed, their populations either killed or sent to live in collective towns. The systematic deportation of Kurds from Kirkuk continues to this day, resulting in a serious refugee problem and huge difficulties for the NGOs involved in rehousing and resettlement programmes. A recent nutrition survey indicated around a quarter of all children under the age of 5 were undernourished in three of the Governorates of Kurdistan.