Habash (Iraq) - (AFP) - In the Iraqi dialect, the word "mako" means "nothing". Issa repeats it a lot by saying, "There is no electricity, there is no house." Eight years after the fierce battles with the Islamic State, the reconstruction process is still stagnating in his village in northern Iraq.
Issa Al-Zamzoum lives in the agricultural village of Habash, 180 km north of the capital, Baghdad. The man, his wife Umm Warda, and their five children live in a house made of cement, part of which collapsed during the war in 2014, but it was not separated from the other parts of the building.
In one room, a hen watches her chicks, and in another, she has piled old sleeping mats against a wall.
Issa's main home was destroyed and the place he now resides in has been given to him. "There is nothing here, no electricity, no work, nothing," says the 42-year-old, adding, "Since the war until now, we have not seen construction or services."
An advisor in Salah al-Din governorate, to which the village of Habash belongs, who preferred not to reveal his identity, justifies the delay in reconstruction work due to the extent of the governorate's "wideness". "We cannot yet arrange things 100 percent," he told AFP.
In the village of Habash, the destroyed or semi-destroyed houses are in the dozens, as if the war had just ended. The village is paying the heavy price of the siege imposed by the Islamic State in the summer of 2014 on the city of Amerli, located about 10 kilometers from the village of Habash.
At the time, the jihadists controlled the city of Mosul and other lands in northern Iraq. They advanced south and besieged Amerli. In late August of the same year, the Iraqi army, the Popular Mobilization Forces, and the Kurdish Peshmerga forces broke the siege of Amerli, the village of Habash, and the neighboring villages that the jihadists used as bases.
In late 2017, the Iraqi government and the Iraqi army, with the support of the international coalition, declared "victory" over the organization.
But the story did not end with the end of the battles.
According to Human Rights Watch, after the 2014 siege, and during the raids, "militias, volunteer fighters and members of the Iraqi security forces looted the property of civilians who fled the fighting during the attack on Amerli."
"They burned the homes and shops of the Sunnis who lived in the villages and used explosives and heavy equipment to destroy buildings owned by individuals or entire villages," she added.
Today, "the humanitarian needs are enormous" in the Tuz Khurmato district where Habash is located, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council. The non-governmental organization added, in a statement to Agence France-Presse, that about "20,000 displaced people live" in the district, speaking of "urgent" needs for water and electricity.
Some people also lack identity papers, according to the organization, as to obtain them, some residents face "problems in clearing their profile of any security suspicions" due to suspicions of their affiliation with the Islamic State.
Like Issa al-Zamzoum and his neighbor Abd al-Karim Nuri, the majority of Habash's residents are Sunni Arabs.
"This life of ours is not life. I have no job. I have five sheep to live on," says Nuri. He added, addressing one of the region's deputies, "He said he would carry out reconstruction, but he did nothing."
Nouri, however, does not talk about his sectarian affiliation, nor about sectarianism, which has become a sensitive issue in Iraq, in which tens of thousands of people were killed during the sectarian conflict between 2006 and 2008.
However, four and a half years after the fall of the self-proclaimed "caliphate" of the Islamic State, some Sunnis say they are still subject to harassment and discrimination.
A report by the US State Department published in 2021 stated that Sunni officials denounced the "forced displacement of Sunnis" at the hands of the Popular Mobilization Forces, and the "arbitrary arrests" of members of their sect "suspected of being linked to the Islamic State."
Without mentioning the Islamic State, the official in Salah al-Din governorate spoke of "security concerns" that are also delaying reconstruction work.
While Habash got rid of the Islamic State, the ghost of its cells still roams about 15 kilometers in the areas to the north.
Along the road leading to the village of Bir Ahmed, the Popular Mobilization Forces, an alliance of Shiite armed factions that have become integrated into the Iraqi official forces, deployed security barriers and raised the alert level.
"The situation in Bir Ahmed is out of our control and that of the army," said one of the officers.
"If you want, go in, but I can't guarantee whether you will come back," he added.