Market economy forms in Iraqi refugee camp

Entrepreneurs hawk necessities of life in Khazir camp

KHAZIR, IRAQ // Mobile phones, cartons of cigarettes and fresh mutton are on sale in a camp for Iraqi civilians displaced in the battle to recapture Mosul – if they have the money.

In the Khazir camp, buyers trudged in the mud, examining improvised market stalls between tents that shelter thousands of people.

Behind his makeshift display of mobile phones and USB cables, Waad Khalaf, 28, grins. Buyers had been flocking to his stall, he said.

Under ISIL, “having a mobile phone meant prison, so now everybody needs to buy one”, he said, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket to warm them.

The former labourer escaped his home town of Gogjali on the outskirts of Mosul in northern Iraq last month as fighting raged there between Iraqi forces and ISIL fighters. Selling phones for up to 130,000 Iraqi dinars ( Dh400) each allowed him to buy winter clothes and shoes for his daughter and son, said Mr Khalaf. He and his wife could then also afford to buy medicine from Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan several dozen kilometres to the east.

Not far from the improvised market, Mr Khalaf’s clients can charge their new phone by plugging it in to a multi-socket extension cord linked to a generator.

In a camp with just four hours of electricity a day, savvy young entrepreneurs are asking for the equivalent of about 40 US cents (Dh1.46) for an hour of power from the machine.

Mr Khalaf has been selling his phones only for three days but Farhan Yassin said he was one of the first salesmen at the market.

It happened “just like that”, he said. “We never spoke to each other but somehow we all ended up here.”

For 12 days, Mr Yassin has been selling cigarettes as a way of returning to normality after living under the extremists.

He lost his shop in Mosul after ISIL closed it down and made him pay the equivalent of about $1,300 for selling cigarettes, he said, which were just as sinful as mobile phones under ISIL’s rule.

He now sells each packet of cigarettes for about 500 dinars after buying them in bulk in Erbil.

Ammar, a barber, also left Mosul last month when anti-ISIL forces arrived at the gates of Iraq’s second city.

He was able to smuggle only a pair of scissors into his bag as he fled and had to buy all the rest of his equipment in Erbil.

Seating his clients in front of a mirror, he uses his new gear to trim their beards or snip their hair.

His customers “pay what they want as nobody has work”, he said, plastic comb in hand, bags of vegetables left behind on his small table as payment.

The history graduate, 26, was unable to work as a teacher under ISIL, because the group set up its own schools, he said. When he could not find work at a camp school either, he resorted to his snipping skills to support his daughter “who needs diapers and powdered milk”. Not far from where he cuts hair, powdered milk is on sale next to sanitary pads, underwear, metal cutlery and fizzy drinks for those with money.

Cash is in rare supply among the 3 million people displaced by fighting in Iraq. But one couple has found a solution. They slip bags of rice and lentils they have received as aid through the fence surrounding the camp to people on the other side who buy them with a few precious bank notes.

‘ Under ISIL having a mobile phone meant prison, so now everybody needs to buy one Waad Khalaf Market stall seller