Excerpt
SUMMARY: After being driven out of Tikrit, the Islamic State has renewed its push into Western Anbar province. The government in Baghdad is wary of letting in fleeing families, seeing displaced people from IS strongholds as security risks. Meanwhile, Iraqi forces are preparing for a tough battle in Garma. Special correspondent Jane Arraf reports.
JANE ARRAF (NewsHour): The latest wave of Iraqis fleeing the Islamic State group. This time, it’s in the Sunni heartland of al-Anbar province.
Driven out of Tikrit, the group, also known as ISIS, has made a renewed push into western Anbar province and its capital, Ramadi. These families are the tip of a huge humanitarian crisis, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in Iraq’s biggest province forced out by the conflict, joining two million Iraqis already displaced.
Fatima has moved three times since she left her home in Haditha in western al-Anbar last year, always just one step ahead of the fighting.
FATIMA MAHMOUD AWADH (through interpreter): They were striking us with rockets. There were explosions in the houses. There were houses being hit during the airstrikes at night. Finally, we had to leave.
JANE ARRAF: The Iraqi government sees these people as a potential security risk. ISIS has controlled large parts of Anbar for most of the year, and the government is wary of letting in people from ISIS strongholds.
These people have managed to flee Ramadi and the ISIS onslaught. But they’re not safe yet. To actually get to Baghdad, they have to prove that they have a sponsor to vouch for them. The problem is that some of these families have now moved three and four times, and they have run out of relatives to stay with.
When we met him, this Ramadi resident had been waiting here for two days in the hope someone would sponsor him. The government later said it would allow families to enter without a sponsor, but it would keep out young single men.
Um Ibrahim saw two of her sons married just two days ago. The wedding party took place in a prefabricated trailer. She says tribal leaders and the Iraqi government have abandoned them.
“This is the only thing we ever got from them,” she says, holding up a piece of chocolate. “I’m going to save it as a souvenir.”
The Interior Ministry says it is concerned that ISIS operatives could be hiding among displaced people. In Baghdad, the Interior Ministry paraded the latest ISIS suspects. These, they say, have confessed to attacks against security forces and involvement in a bomb-making ring.
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