ONE-OFF GRANTS - IRAQ

NAME: SAMI VELIOGLU
PROJECT: HUMANITARIAN LIAISON CENTRE   
LOCATION: KIRKUK, NORTHERN IRAQ

Sami Velioglu met Scilla Elworthy, founder of Peace Direct, when she spoke in Bristol in 2004. Sami is a British Iraqi who returned to his home town of Kirkuk two months after the invasion. He was shocked to see people standing in line all day in 45 degree heat trying to find out where their arrested relatives were, or to get redress for property damaged by troops, or justice for a raped sister. They were being sent home at the end of a day’s waiting, with nothing. Sami said “If we don’t do something, people will take the law into their own hands.”

With Peace Direct’s help, he went back to Kirkuk to set up a centre where people damaged by the conflict could tell their stories and gain redress. He’s witnessed incredible stories of courage, injustice and terrible sadness. His centre has dealt with over 2,500 individual cases, secured a water supply for a camp of 6,000 internally displaced people, and in the last two months alone has secured the release of over 100 people wrongfully arrested by the Coalition forces or the Iraqi National Guard.

On his last visit to the UK he gave a sombre report “Bombs are an everyday business. Everyone is on their guard and there is a shortage of absolutely everything. But we have to have optimism; there are honest people that deserve to live in better conditions than this.” His work has never been more important. Grassroots organisations are rapidly disappearing. “If I ever thought our work wasn’t effective, I would pack it in and stop risking my life, but I know we are still achieving so much.”

Sami’s life has frequently been threatened for doing this work. His assistant Mohamed was kidnapped in February 2007, and has not been heard of since. Mohamed’s wife gave birth in June, another child without a father in Iraq