Fallujans in Flight: Transit Camps Are Not Much Safer Than Siege They Left

[maddezmom]

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It is hardly a safe place. Snipers are active in the camp, and insurgents have threatened school teachers who accept supplies from American forces. A reporter and photographer were allowed to watch the food distribution and to speak with people in line, but not to visit the camp itself.

Still, this crowded, troubled spot offers a hint at what life is like some of the 200,000 Fallujans - of a population believed to approach 300,000 - who relief agencies say fled in the weeks before the Nov. 7 invasion by American and Iraqi troops.

Drawing on tribal and family ties that run deep, most of the refugees found shelter in the homes and gardens of relatives and friends across central Iraq, according to refugee workers and American military officials. Some 100,000 went to Amiriya, 12 miles south on the Euphrates River, according to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Baghdad shelters about 30,000 Fallujans. A handful of cities now are home to 10,000 to 20,000 Fallujans apiece, including Habbaniya, Saklawiya, Nuaymiya and Qarma, according to the commissioner.

Some migrated to camps to the south and west of Falluja, dodging the con men promising a place to live for exorbitant prices, to scrape for food and water and electricity among old military buildings and abandoned structures.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/18/international/18refugees.html