Iraqis driven from homes to desperation by militias

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen

By

About 90 Shi'ite families have fled their homes for a small makeshift camp in Baghdad's Akhademiya neighborhood during the past two months, part of an exodus of tens of thousands from mixed Sunni-Shi'ite areas where tit-for-tat executions have become part of daily life.

They include Ahmed Kathum Khalas, a driver who worked in the Beiji refinery 125 miles north of Baghdad, who fled Saturday with his wife and three small children with little more than the clothes they were wearing.

They found their house burned when returning from an outing with a chilling threat spray painted in white on the building's charred walls:

"Leave or we will burn you too."

Mr. Khalas, 31, and his family turned away that moment and headed to Baghdad, to his parents' home.

But his parents, his three married brothers and their families were already living in a space of about 1,000 square feet.

There was not enough room for another five persons, he said, speaking in one of a series of interviews yesterday at the camp by a local reporter.

"The first night was the worst night of my life, it was embarrassing. I lost my honor, because you are living where everyone can see you and your wife," said Mr. Khalas.

He said he spent all his time trying to protect his wife from being seen when she was changing, and standing guard outside the camp's one bathroom when she needed to use it.

"There is no hope that I will get anything back from everything that I had built," he said, to the anger of others living in the camp listening to the conversation.