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Governor of Iraq’s Najaf Resigns after Protests

An aerial view of Iraqis, carrying posters of anti-government protesters killed in 2019, at a march on the Zeitoun bridge in Iraq's southern city of Nasiriyah on November 28, 2021. (AFP)
An aerial view of Iraqis, carrying posters of anti-government protesters killed in 2019, at a march on the Zeitoun bridge in Iraq's southern city of Nasiriyah on November 28, 2021. (AFP)
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Governor of Iraq’s Najaf Resigns after Protests

An aerial view of Iraqis, carrying posters of anti-government protesters killed in 2019, at a march on the Zeitoun bridge in Iraq's southern city of Nasiriyah on November 28, 2021. (AFP)
An aerial view of Iraqis, carrying posters of anti-government protesters killed in 2019, at a march on the Zeitoun bridge in Iraq's southern city of Nasiriyah on November 28, 2021. (AFP)

The governor of Iraq's Najaf province resigned on Friday, a day after another governor also quit following demonstrations against living conditions and corruption.

Louai al-Yasseri resigned from his leadership in Najaf, in central Iraq, a day after the governor of Nasiriyah province in the south quit following the violent suppression of protesters.

Their departures underline the challenges facing war-scarred Iraq and how little has changed despite protests that swept Baghdad and the South two years ago.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to express their anger at corruption, unemployment and crumbling public services, and hundreds lost their lives in protest-related violence.

Yasseri announced at a press conference that he was leaving his post in the city, according to the official Iraqi News Agency.

His resignation follows harsh criticism from prominent cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who emerged as kingmaker following legislative elections in October.

Sadr paid a public visit to the municipality in Najaf on Wednesday after "reports of corruption and shortcomings in this institution", according to the news agency.

"We will work on dismissing the governor of Najaf and replacing him legally," he said.

On Friday evening, Sadr welcomed the governor's resignation as a "step in the right direction".

In the past weeks, sporadic demonstrations have broken out across Najaf and the neighboring province of Diwaniya, as well as in Nasiriyah.

Protesters have decried living conditions and called for job opportunities for young graduates.

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi held a security meeting Wednesday to discuss the protests, where he repeated the need to avoid "the use of force or shoot".

The following day, the governor of Nasiriyah, Ahmed Ghani Khafaji, announced his resignation after protests in which three people were shot and wounded, according to a medical source.

The 2019 demonstrations petered out after bloody crackdowns and the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. More than 600 people were killed and tens of thousands injured throughout the protests.

Kadhimi moved the elections forward to October as a concession to the demonstrators.

But anger gave way to disillusion and the ballot saw record-low turnout.

The movement of Sadr won 73 out of the assembly's total 329 seats, the election commission said.

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Iraqis Face Tough Homecoming a Decade after ISIS Rampage

A woman and a boy in the camp near Hassan Shami for the internally displaced. Safin HAMID / AFP
A woman and a boy in the camp near Hassan Shami for the internally displaced. Safin HAMID / AFP
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Iraqis Face Tough Homecoming a Decade after ISIS Rampage

A woman and a boy in the camp near Hassan Shami for the internally displaced. Safin HAMID / AFP
A woman and a boy in the camp near Hassan Shami for the internally displaced. Safin HAMID / AFP

A decade after the ISIS group extremists rampaged through northern Iraq, Moaz Fadhil and his eight children finally returned to their village after languishing for years in a displacement camp.
Their home, Hassan Shami, is just a stone's throw from the tent city where they had been living, and it still bears the scars of the fight against ISIS.
The militants seized a third of Iraq, ruling their self-declared "caliphate" with an iron fist, before an international coalition wrestled control from them in 2017.
Seven years on, many of the village's homes are still in ruins and lacking essential services, but Fadhil said he felt an "indescribable joy" upon moving back in August.
Iraq -- marred by decades of war and turmoil even before the rise of ISIS -- is home to more than a million internally displaced people.
Baghdad has been pushing for the closure of the displacement camps, with the country having attained a degree of comparative stability in recent years.
Most of the camps in federal Iraq have now been closed, but around 20 remain in the northern autonomous Kurdistan region, which according to the United Nations house more than 115,000 displaced people.
But for many, actually returning home can be a difficult task.
After getting the green light from Kurdish security forces to leave the camp, Fadhil moved his family into a friend's damaged house because his own is a complete ruin.
'Beautiful memories'
"Water arrives by tanker trucks and there is no electricity," said the 53-year-old.
Although the rubble has been cleared from the structure he now lives in, the cinder block walls and rough concrete floors remain bare.
Across Hassan Shami, half-collapsed houses sit next to concrete buildings under construction by those residents who can afford to rebuild.
Some have installed solar panels to power their new lives.
A small new mosque stands, starkly white, beside an asphalt road.
"I was born here, and before me my father and mother," said Fadhil, an unemployed farmer.
"I have beautiful memories with my children, my parents."
The family survives mainly on the modest income brought in by his eldest son, who works as a day laborer on building sites.
"Every four or five days he works a day" for about $8, said Fadhil.
In an effort to close the camps and facilitate returns, Iraqi authorities are offering families around $3,000 to go back to their places of origin.
To do so, displaced people must also get security clearance -- to ensure they are not wanted for extremist crimes -- and have their identity papers or property rights in order.
But of the 11,000 displaced people still living in six displacement camps near Hassan Shami, 600 are former prisoners, according to the UN.
They were released after serving up to five years for crimes related to membership of ISIS.
Not that simple
For them, going home can mean further complications.
There's the risk of ostracism by neighbors or tribes for their perceived affiliation with IS atrocities, potential arrest at a checkpoint by federal forces or even a second trial.
Among them is 32-year-old Rashid, who asked that we use a pseudonym because of his previous imprisonment in Kurdistan for belonging to the extremist ISIS group.
He said he hopes the camp next to Hassan Shami does not close.
"I have a certificate of release (from prison), everything is in order... But I can't go back there", he said of federal Iraq.
"If I go back it's 20 years" in jail, he added, worried that he would be tried again in an Iraqi court.
Ali Abbas, spokesperson for Iraq's migration ministry, said that those who committed crimes may indeed face trial after they leave the camps.
"No one can prevent justice from doing its job", he said, claiming that their families would not face repercussions.
The government is working to ensure that families who return have access to basic services, Abbas added.
In recent months, Baghdad has repeatedly tried to set deadlines for Kurdistan to close the camps, even suing leaders of the autonomous region before finally opting for cooperation over coercion.
Imrul Islam of the Norwegian Refugee Council said displacement camps by definition are supposed to be temporary, but warned against their hasty closure.
When people return, "you need schools. You need hospitals. You need roads. And you need working markets that provide opportunities for livelihoods," he said.
Without these, he said, many families who try to resettle in their home towns would end up returning to the camps.