Tensions rose earlier this month when men dressed in Iraqi security personnel uniforms kidnapped two women. Their naked bodies were found later.

After the incident, the ‘Awakening Groups’ in Baquba, 40 km northeast of Baghdad, gave Shia police chief Gen. Ghanim al-Qureyshi until mid-day Friday to apologise and to arrest the men responsible.

“We hereby declare suspension of all co-operation with U.S. military, Iraqi security forces and the local government,” Abu Abdullah, spokesman for the Awakening Council in Diyala province announced after the deadline passed.

On Saturday hundreds of members of the Awakening Council shut their offices and held three separate demonstrations in Baquba. The government in Baghdad promised to send a committee to investigate the incident, following which the Awakening Council of Diyala resumed security of the city.

Although the Awakening Groups have resumed security duties, they asked residents to stop going to their offices or shops for three days, Feb. 9-11.

On Sunday fighters from these groups entered the office of the directorate-general of education and ordered employees to leave, Abu Harith, a fighter with the Awakening Group told IPS. “They did the same at other offices. We will keep doing so until our demands are met — the resignation of the police chief.”

The Awakening Groups, also referred to as Concerned Local Citizens by the U.S. military, were formed to battle al-Qaeda. Members are paid 300 dollars a month by occupation forces, and now number over 80,000 across Iraq. The groups form a counterweight to the government security apparatus, which has long been known to comprise primarily Shia militiamen.

Residents of Baquba are worried over the fallout, and the incident has already sparked violence.

“The crisis began when two women were arrested and raped at a police checkpoint near their hometown,” resident Abu Muhaned told IPS. “As a reaction to this, people of Tahreer district (two kilometres from Baquba), which is a stronghold of the (Sunni) Islamic party, attacked some Shia families.”

Sectarian tensions, already high between the Awakening Groups, which are 82 percent Sunni, and Shia government forces, escalated after the incident.

“Sounds of firing were heard, and people of Baquba felt that the streets may be overrun by militants again,” Muhaned said. “The situation will get worse, and clashes may happen if the government does not behave wisely.”

Adding to the crisis is the bombing of an office of one of the members of the Islamic party, Hussein al-Zubaidi, member of the Diyala province governing council who is responsible for security. Local sources told IPS that Zubaidi was injured and two U.S. soldiers were killed in the attack, but the deaths have not been confirmed by the U.S. military.

The Islamic Party accused Qureyshi of leaving Zubaidi without protection. Some members of the party told IPS there were sharp verbal exchanges later at a meeting of the governing council, leading almost to blows.

The conflicts have arisen in a situation where Sunnis say most jobs in the province go to Shias.

“Sunni ex-officers are not allowed to return to their jobs (since the occupation), while all the Shia have their own jobs back,” a member of the Diyala Awakening Council, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. “The idea behind this procedure is that once all the officers are Shia, the Shias will control the city.”

Before the recent incident involving the two women, two Sunni men were kidnapped at a police checkpoint.

“They were released, but immediately after they were kidnapped near the emergency police office,” local trader Abu Ibrahim told IPS. “No one can kidnap people there unless he is from the police. These two men were later found killed in the street.”

People have begun to show their resentment over the sectarian behaviour of the police, and have accused the government of destablising the city. The conflict is taking various forms. A leader of the local Awakening Council, also speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS that members of the Awakening Groups were not being allowed into government jobs.

“Qureyshi hired thousands of Shias in the police force, even those above the age limit (30),” he said. “This is because they are Shia. Now, every person aged 16-50 years in Khirnabat (Qureyshi’s home town) is a policeman.”

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are more than 4.4 million displaced Iraqis, an estimate that many workers among refugees find conservative.

The UNHCR announced last week that at present 2,000 Iraqis are fleeing their homes every day. Most of them have received direct threats from death squads or militias.

The provinces that have suffered the greatest displacement are the largely Sunni Baghdad, Diyala, al-Anbar and Salahadeen in central Iraq.

Members of many families who have not fled told IPS they have stayed on because they had no choice.

“We could not leave our city despite the security situation because we don’t have the money to travel and live outside Iraq,” Ali Muhsin, an official with the directorate general of education and a father of five told IPS in Baquba, 40 km northeast of Baghdad.

“For more than a year, we used to receive the salary only every 50 or 60 days because the militants had taken over the entire city. They even controlled the banks, which prevented our offices from receiving the money.”

Muhsin said most workers in the education system in Diyala province (north of Baghdad where Baquba is located) are not fully employed, and are therefore not paid salaries. And the rampant violence has prevented people going to work.

“People can hardly afford to live in Iraq, so how could they afford the expense of travelling and living abroad,” Najmeldeen Alwan, a local grocer near Baquba told IPS. His wife Suhir, standing by his side, said, “We just wait for our destiny.”

Local Iraqis say most people who fled had the means, or the ability to acquire the means.

“Seventy percent of those who fled are rich, and the rest had various resources,” Abaid Nasir, an unemployed trader in Baquba told IPS. “Some sold their properties, others used up their savings to save the lives of their family.”

But it is not money alone that decides whether a family stays or goes.

“My family live in a small village which has managed to defend itself from criminals and gangs,” Ta’ama Aed told IPS. “Our people protect it against the militants. The only thing the militants can do is bomb it with mortars.”

Aed lives in a small village on the outskirts of Baquba. But the need for safety meant that “inhabitants do not leave the village,” he said.

Other families have made deals with militias and resistance groups for their protection.

“A large number of people have sided with the militants for their safety,” local resident Mohammed Jabur told IPS. “In such cases, one of the militants guarantees the family that nobody will hurt them, and they usually keep their word.”

There are no formal, government sponsored refugee camps in Iraq. Makeshift camps are common throughout the country, but they are fluid, and security in them is poor.

One reason keeping many Iraqis back now is the lack of security on highways. Most people IPS interviewed said they avoided travelling more than two or three kilometres from their villages, towns, or cities.

“I wanted to leave Iraq, but I could not because the militants control the highways and all the roads from the city,” Ahmed Salih from Baquba city told IPS. “All the way to the borders, militias and fighters control the roads.”

On Oct. 1 Syria decided to close its borders to Iraqis, except for traders and academics. The move has left thousands of family members separated from one another.

Roughly 10 percent of Syria’s population is now Iraqis, and the government has said it cannot absorb more refugees.

The U.S. itself is least affected by the refugee crisis. Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the U.S. administration has issued less than 2,000 visas to Iraqis.

“Since October 2006 the U.S. government has gone from denying that large numbers of vulnerable Iraqi refugees even existed, to speaking openly of an Iraqi refugee crisis,” the group Refugees International said in a statement. “But its actual financial commitments are commensurate neither with the need nor with the U.S. role in creating the displacement crisis in the first place. The President and his war cabinet have yet to recognise the human toll the violence has been taking on Iraqi civilians and neighbouring countries.”