Exiled Iraqis Too Scared to Return Home Despite Propaganda Push
To show that Iraq was safe enough for the two million Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan to return, the Iraqi government organised a bus convoy last November from Damascus to Baghdad carrying 800 Iraqis home for free.
As a propaganda exercise designed to show that the Iraqi government was restoring peace, it never quite worked. The majority of the returnees said they were returning to Baghdad, not because it was safer, but because they had run out of money in Syria or their visas had expired.
There has been no mass return of the two million Iraqis who fled to Syria and Jordan or a further 2.4 million refugees who left their homes within Iraq. The latest figures from the UN High Commission for Refugees show that, on the contrary, the number of people entering Syria from Iraq was 1,200 a day in late January “while an average of 700 are going back to Iraq from Syria”.
The reasons people are not going back, despite new stringent visa regulations in Syria, are that they know Baghdad is very dangerous, the chances of making a living are small and there is a continuing lack of electricity and water.
The case of Mohammed Salman al-Dlaimi, who used to distribute food rations in the Sunni enclave of al-Khudat in west Baghdad, explains why so many left and are dubious about coming back. He lived in his father’s large house with his three brothers, making just enough money to survive, until he was arrested by the National Guard in 2007.
“They accused me of being a member of al-Qa’ida,” he said, “and tortured me because I’m a Sunni. Everybody knows I am just a small businessman.”
Released after three months, he fled to Syria, saying to friends: “I plan to move to Tartous [on the coast] and start a business on a small scale importing cars.”
But, like many other Iraqi refugees, he discovered that Syrians would not let them become business competitors. He returned to Baghdad in December and stayed in his family’s house, but on the night of 20 January, neighbours heard women screaming and, in the morning, they learnt he had been arrested again by the National Guard.
Not all returnees suffer disaster. Marwan Omar is a 35-year-old Sunni doctor who used to work at Yarmouk hospital in west Baghdad. In 2006, the hospital came under the control of Mehdi Army Shia militia and his father was worried that his name would identify him as a Sunni and they would kill him. His father was also intimidated out of his job in the railway station by Shia militiamen.
The family moved to Syria but Dr Omar found he was not allowed to work in Syrian hospitals and they could not get their visas renewed. Back in Baghdad Dr Omar has found work in a private clinic, within a Sunni enclave he never leaves.
Baghdad is safer than it was in 2006 and early 2007 during those days of the mass slaughter, when Shia and Sunni were automatically killed if they fell into the hands of the other community. But it is still very dangerous for returning refugees, particularly if their houses have been taken over.
Sometimes the threat against returnees is very specific. The Al-Mussawi family had unwisely put up a black flag announcing that their father, a restaurant owner in Saadoun Street, had been martyred by Saddam Hussein in the early 1980s for being a member of the Shia Dawa party. They did that four years ago but the act advertised their sympathies.
The morning after they returned from Syria, they found a threatening letter enclosing two Kalashnikov bullets outside their door. “The problem is,” said one Shia woman, “that Sunni and Shia in Baghdad just don’t feel safe with each other any more.”
* A suicide car bomb killed 33 people in Iraq yesterday. The bomber struck a checkpoint outside a market near the town of Balad in the country’s north. The checkpoint was run by Sunni Arab volunteers.
© 2008 The Independent
Yeah, right. Come to sunny Iraq and have a blast. The horror we’ve either started, or exacerbated, in Iraq will probably be going on long after the Empire of the United States is but a shattered memory.
Nobody seems to remember:
Thou shalt not kill,
Love one another.
Do not unto others that you would not have done unto you.
This would solve a lot of problems.
There were 40 G.I.s killed in January and already 15 this month. In 43 straight days there have been 58 killed since Dec. 30. There has been a steep increase of suicide bombings in the past month and Al-Sadr’s armys truce is over at the end of this month. I say bring our soldiers home before an anti-surge begins!
Before we withdraw we should consider negotiating safe passage out of Iraq for those who choose to leave. In addition the U.S. should organize a fund to help support these people until they can once again be somewhat self sufficient. Those left in Iraq will then fight their civil war until their lust for blood and power has been satisfied and a compromise or stalemate is reached.
“The reasons people are not going back, despite new stringent visa regulations in Syria, are that they know Baghdad is very dangerous, the chances of making a living are small and there is a continuing lack of electricity and water.”
They don’t want to go back? Really? I can’t imagine why.
Enough citizen’s haven’t been killed? They want them to come home to no work, civil war,a destroyed infrastructure along withhaving their land, air and water poisoned by DU.
I suppose that would be cheaper than compensating them for their losses.
All things against the Geneva Conventions………..
I suppose it is a piece of paper just like the Constitution or the bible for that matter.
Those responsible need to be held accountable, including those that manipulated the elections right from the get go in 2000.
finally - the truth is out !!!
doom n gloom : the refugees would nevr have left wwithout the illegal invasion and killing in Iraq. That society left to their own devices was SAFER than ours.
Gotta point ther Curm:
Safer than the US, more liberal than Egypt or Saudi Arabia, moe secular than Israel. Then why?
Got oil?
I can’t say that I blame them I wouldn’t not unless I had to! I don’t think the situation is a gram better than it ever has been. Bush can crow to the dawns early light. But the statistics of American dead are telling. It’s another one of his dillusions that he is winning. If he can keep the lies up until after the election he can pass the mess off to the next President.
I would not want to return either after more than 1 MILLION of my country people died in one of the worst genocides in modern world history!
The Hurtlitzer of Propaganda has truly run out of steam. Nobody is fooled by any of this.
bbr 01: It isn’t exactly the oil. Sadaam began to sell his oil in Euros. This was an unacceptable risk to the US economy as it rests on the accumulation of dollars by the world that uses it as a reserve currency. If this ends the US will collapse. That is what they are trying to prevent. The second reason is to protect Israel. The oil itself is a bonus.