Adil Garayev lives with his family in car 240 on Track 12, outside the railway station in Imishli.
They have been living here since 1993, when Armenian troops forced them to flee Horovly village in the now occupied Jabrayil district.
RUSTY CATTLE CAR
“We had everything there,” Adil recalls nostalgically, leaning against the rusty cattle car that has become his home.
“We didn’t have to buy anything because we grew all our own fruit and vegetables. If I needed money, I simply sold a cow,” he says, his creased face making him appear older than his 44 years.
ARMENIAN SOLDIERS
But on 23 August 1993, Adil lost everything.
“The Armenian soldiers came and just began to shoot and we began to run,” he recalls.
“We had friends among the Armenians. We used to stay in each other's homes. There was no border between us,” he adds, still apparently confused about how things could have changed so suddenly.
RAILWAY COMMUNITY
Today Adil is one of 500 displaced people living in 382 wagons in the railway community of Imishli, a small city in southern Azerbaijan.
They are part of a total population of over 800,000 displaced people, representing one of the highest concentrations of displaced people per capita in the world.
HORRENDOUS LIVING CONDITIONS
Many of the displaced live in some 5,000 old railway carriages scattered around Azerbaijan, and the living conditions are horrendous.
Residents must deal with the regular grinding sounds of trains on other tracks. The metal carriages that are their homes are not only overcrowded, but suffer frequent electricity cuts and have no running water.
They are also suffocatingly hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter.
ESCAPING THE SUN
Most of the train-car residents are sitting under the carriages on Track 12 to escape the sun.
“In the summertime the heat is so bad that we have to wait until evening to enter the carriages. We’re like fried chickens being roasted in an oven,” complains Muzaffar Khanaliyev, 65, another Track 12 resident.
And with no jobs to be had, there is no money to spend on easing the discomfort.
FOOD RATIONS
To help them survive, WFP provides them with food rations including flour, vegetable oil, pulses and salt. Sugar was once also included but funding shortages mean it has been dropped from the food basket.
Since 1994, WFP has provided 90,000 metric tons of food to assist over 500,000 people affected by the conflict.
And a recent WFP food security and nutrition report – the first of its kind in Azerbaijan – warned that nearly 300,000 of the 800,000 Azerbaijanis displaced by the conflict with Armenia will continue to rely heavily on food aid for the foreseeable future.
DESPERATE NEED FOR FUNDS
But to continue its assistance, WFP desperately needs more funds.
The US$21 million, three-year operation, which began in January 2003, is currently underfunded by US$5.6 million.
Due to the lack of resources, WFP was forced to suspend nearly all assistance for one month. Existing stocks are sufficient to last until August 2005, but by September there will be a shortage of all commodities.
WORSENING SITUATION
Moreover, with the plight of the displaced people of Nagorno Karabakh no longer in the public eye, the situation of the survivors gets worse.
While no survey has yet been done with regards to malnutrition, many of the children look dangerously small for their age.
Without work, there is no money to buy fresh fruit and vegetables, say the parents. And there is no money for planning events such as marriages.
NO MONEY, NO HOMES
“I worry about the young generation. We have 30-year-olds who still have no money, no homes and little chance to get married,” says Rustamov Eyyub, once the proud representative of Gumlakh village and now the inhabitant of a dilapidated wagon.
Eyyub fled his home along with 2,000 other villagers. He went to Iran and then on to Imishli, where he now lives with 12 family members in a train carriage.
EIGHT ROOMS, 40 SHEEP
“I was a worker in the days of the former Soviet Union. I had an eight-room home, 40 sheep and a job. It was good. Now I live in a wagon,” he adds, dragging heavily on a cheap cigarette.
“We have food, and in winter we have oil for heating, so in general we are in good spirits,” he says with a shrug.
“But a wagon is a wagon,” he adds wearily.
WORRY FOR YOUNG STATE
The displaced people of Nagorno Karabakh are a worry for the young Azerbaijani state.
While oil resources have grown in recent years and the government has set up an oil fund that has reached US$1.2 billion, this is a country that is still grappling with massive poverty.
EXTREME POVERTY
Nearly 50 percent of the population is impoverished and 37 percent live in extreme poverty.
Most of the survivors of the Azeri-Armenian conflict live in the countryside, where poverty is endemic.
The government is trying to take over some of the caseload from humanitarian agencies, but WFP continues to assist nearly 130,000 of the most impoverished.
GOING HOME
While they appreciate WFP’s help, the train-dwellers of Imishli have not given up on the hope that their stay on the tracks is temporary.
“At the moment we can’t live without WFP’s assistance, but I also live with the hope that one day we will be going home,” says Adil.
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