Iraq, November 28: Squeezed between a rubbish dump and a dry riverbed, Al-Zuhoor has no clean water or electricity and the gypsies who live here are at the margins of the new post-invasion Iraq.
In smelly alleys bordered by brick hovels, without glass windows or doors, men wander without work, a young girl plays on a squeaky swing and women return from a day’s begging in Diwaniyah, 180 kilometres (110 miles) south of Baghdad.
In the distance, smoke from burning rubbish blackens the sky and, when the wind turns, the nauseous odour is overwhelming.
Before the US-led invasion of 2003, the situation was much better.
The men were professional singers or musicians and the women were invited to dance at feasts, weddings and parties in Iraq, having migrated to the Middle East from India centuries ago.
With the rise of post-invasion chaos, they suffered like the rest of Iraqis.
“We live worse than dogs,” says Ragnab Hannumi Allawi, a villager, wearing a sombre, piercing black look, surrounded by a group of women and sitting on a dusty carpet.
She now refuses to go to Diwaniyah, capital of the eponymous province, to seek help. “The authorities say ‘you are entitled to nothing’ and throw us out.”
Some resort to begging.
“We leave at 5:00 am and we return around 3:00 pm, for two years they have been shutting all the doors on us,” says Lamia Hallub, her face broken.
The men, meanwhile, remember with nostalgia the weddings and events where they played and sang at night for rich families.
Before 2003 “we could work in music and folk festivals,” says Khalid Jassim, his head dressed in a red and white checked Keffiyeh.
“Give me any job — military, police, security or worker.”
“In the village, the infrastructure was destroyed, including the water network and the electricity,” explains Abbas al-Sidi, a member of the province’s Human Rights Commission.
The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 is viewed by critics as an ‘act of aggression’ that violated international law.
Subsequent US occupation policies caused the country to descend into almost total chaos, bordering on civil war.
An estimated 1.3 million Iraqis have been killed in Iraq as a direct result of the invasion, while millions more have fled the country.
Critics argue that the recent stability announced in the country should not excuse the ‘crime’ of invading Iraq, calling for the prosecution of the war’s architects for ‘crimes against humanity’.
—Agencies