DAMASCUS - Refugees from Baquba city who
have found shelter in Damascus describe their
hometown as a "dead city" where armed men roam the
streets and al-Qaeda reigns.
Baquba,
capital city of Iraq's Diyala province is located
50 kilometers northeast of Baghdad on the Diyala
river. In 2002 the estimated population was
280,000. The city has been inhabited continuously
since pre-Islamic times and is the trade center
for Iraq's commercial orange groves.
The
city became a hot spot of resistance early on in the
occupation. It has been torn
apart in fighting between occupation forces and
the Iraqi resistance - and also between various
militia groups and al-Qaeda, which has emerged as
a distinct new group, its fleeing residents say.
By the end of 2006, the city was largely
under the control of Sunni resistance groups, but
by early 2007 residents report that al-Qaeda had
formed a larger presence in the city. As a result,
more than half the people in the city have fled,
refugees say.
"Life in Baquba nowadays is
unbearable," Aziz Abdulla, an unemployed
university professor who arrived in Damascus last
week, told Inter Press Service (IPS). "There is no
security at all. Violence is increasing day after
day because there is no control from the
government and no real existence of coalition
forces there. Terrorists and other fighters rule
the city. Baquba is a city of terror."
Abdulla said that killing and kidnapping
are rampant. "We have all become used to seeing
dead bodies in the streets. I've seen too many.
When we see them, nobody touches the body because
if you do you are killed by gunmen. They watch for
who touches the body, and kill that person right
then or later."
"I think well over half of
our city has left, and those who remain never
leave their homes," Abdulla said. "Those who are
left sit in their homes and wait for their death.
They may take their fate from a terrorist entering
their house, or a car bomb, or a shooting."
Baquba General Hospital is in a state of
collapse, refugees say. Ahmed Shibad, a
30-year-old doctor from the hospital, fled Baquba
a month ago and now lives in the al-Qudsiya
neighborhood on the outskirts of Damascus with
tens of thousands of other Iraqi refugees.
"I left Baquba because of the terrorists
and the Iraqi Army. The conditions at my hospital
were very, very bad," he told IPS. "We had no
supplies, and the Iraqi forces occupied the
hospital and used it as an observation post and
used the roof as a sniper platform."
He,
like Abdulla, said al-Qaeda is largely in control
of the city, and that US forces are doing little
to stop them. But his main complaint is about the
Iraqi forces. "The Iraqi forces determine who
enters the hospital or not, and this causes a big
problem for the doctors," he said. "They take many
innocent people from the hospital. Our morgue can
holds 12 corpses, but it is always overfilled."
Shibad said prior to the invasion and
occupation of Iraq, Diyala province had 600
doctors. The last he knew, he said, there were
only 124, and the number is decreasing each month.
One of the bases in the city is referred
to as Camp Boom by the US soldiers stationed there
because it takes so many hits from armed groups,
refugees said. Another US Forward Operating Base
(FOB) called FOB Scunion is separated from the
larger Camp Freedom by a highway known as "RPG
[rocket propelled grenade] Alley" because of the
many attacks against coalition forces there.
"Americans only control one kilometer of
road, which is the main road where the governor's
office and court building are in central Baquba,
and they rarely run patrols in the city because
they are attacked every time," a refugee who had
just arrived from Baquba told IPS.
He
asked to be referred to as Haida for fear of
reprisal attacks from armed groups, al-Qaeda or US
forces. "Every day we see attacks against the
Americans. This is because the coalition forces
created their own enemies by being so rough on the
people of Baquba since the beginning of the
occupation."
Haida said that control of
the city is shared between Iraqi resistance groups
who are fighting coalition forces, and "the other
group is al-Qaeda". Either way, he said, men
carrying guns control most of Baquba.
Despite its small size, Diyala province
has seen the sixth-largest number of US troops
killed in Iraq among the 18 provinces in the
country. According to the Department of Defense,
at least 144 troops have been killed there, 44 of
them this year.
Haida and Abdulla, who
come from different areas of Baquba, told IPS
separately that the city has almost completely
shut down now. No markets are open and those who
remain live on locally grown vegetables and fruit.
"There is nothing transported from Baghdad
because there is no way to travel there due to the
unofficial checkpoints controlled by militias,"
said Haida. "If you pass through one and you are
the wrong sect of Islam, you are killed
immediately. People have stopped going to Baghdad.
We are cut off."
Abdulla said gasoline is
too expensive for most people, and inflation is
"out of control". In any case, gas is rarely
available since "tankers can no longer reach the
city from Baghdad".
Money counts for
little, he said. "There is no money at the banks
because bringing the money from Baghdad to Baquba
is too dangerous. The government cannot control
it, and the money will be stolen by so many
different groups of people. Our city has become a
dead city."
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