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Middle East Eye (17 January 2019)

Elizabeth Hagedorn

HAMAM AL-ALIL, Iraq - At a camp for displaced Iraqis just south of Mosul, Intisar sits on a thin, well-worn mat inside the mostly bare tent she now calls home.

Life has been difficult since she arrived to Hamam al-Alil just over a year ago with five children in tow.

“The other kids yell at mine, ‘dwaesh, dwaesh’. It really bothers me,” Intisar told Middle East Eye, referring to a commonly used term for members of the Islamic State group (IS).

But it’s not just the children in the camp who view her family with suspicion.

Intisar, who requested her last name be withheld to protect her family, said that the Iraqi government has prevented them from returning home to the al-Tanek neighbourhood of Mosul because of accusations against her husband, an imam arrested on terrorism charges.

“They should only have the right to judge the men who joined the Islamic State,” Intisar said. “Not their families.”

Suspicion of Sunni Muslims has become widespread in the wake of the militant group’s defeat in Mosul and other cities last year.

Up and down the country, camps are filled with displaced Sunni families unable to return home because their male relatives are suspected of having joined or collaborated with the group when their cities were under IS control.

To read the rest of the article, please click: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/presumed-guilty-suspected-families-iraq-blocked-returning-home-1607986078