Iraq’s Bedouin forced to settle down
Although many Iraqi Bedouin tribes have had to give up their nomadic lifestyle and have settled, they do not have access to basic services such as health care and education due to the Iraqi government’s neglect.
EAST BABIL, Iraq — Iraqi Bedouin living in areas of the Babil and Wasit provinces, directly to the south and southeast of Baghdad, constitute a group of people that left nomadic life in the desert and took up residence in villages close to cities. In this context, Mohsen Lafta, writer and researcher on the origins of Iraqi society, told Al-Monitor, “These tribes could no longer move with all their members from one place to another. That is why they chose stability. It is no longer an unusual choice.”
He said, “The ancestors of most Iraqis were Bedouin and those [with Bedouin origins] cling to their traditions — such as hospitality, generosity and tight family and tribal relations — despite having settled in agricultural lands.”
Lafta listed several Iraqi tribes with Bedouin origins, such as the Suwaidi tribe from southeast Hilla, the Bueij tribe that is part of the Adnanite Anazzah tribe, the Harakisah tribe in Babil, Diwaniyah and Najaf, and the Shammar tribe that settled eventually in the central Euphrates Basin.
Sheikh Ali al-Hardan from the Harakisah tribe in Babil told Al-Monitor, “In the 1970s and even before, we would not settle anywhere but move according to the seasons of the year. We would go where there was grass and rain. That is how many Bedouin lived. Many of them would cross the Iraqi borders with Kuwait, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Today, we have chosen stability over a nomadic lifestyle.”
