"I Am Now a Refugee"
The Iraqi Crisis That Has No Name
by Dahr Jamail
Since
the shock-and-awe invasion of Iraq began in March 2003, that country's
explosive unraveling has never left the news or long been off the front
page. Yet the fallout beyond its borders from the destruction,
disintegration, and ethnic mayhem in Iraq has almost avoided notice.
And yet with -- according to United Nations estimates -- approximately
50,000 Iraqis fleeing their country each month (and untold numbers of
others being displaced internally), Iraq is producing one of the -- if
not the -- most severe refugee crisis on the planet, a crisis without a
name and without significant attention.
For the last two
weeks, I've been in Syria, visiting refugee centers and camps, the
offices and employees of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR), and poor neighborhoods in Damascus that are filling
up with desperate, almost penniless Iraqi refugees, sometimes living 15
to a room. In statistical and human terms, these few days offered a
small window into the magnitude of a catastrophe that is still
unfolding and shows no sign of abating in any immediately imaginable
future.
Let's start with the numbers, inadequate as they are.
The latest UN figures concerning the refugee crisis in Iraq indicate
that between 1-1.2 million Iraqis have fled across the border into
Syria; about 750,000 have crossed into Jordan (increasing its modest
population of 5.5 million by 14%); at least another 150,000 have made
it to Lebanon; over 150,000 have emigrated to Egypt; and -- these
figures are the trickiest of all -- over 1.9 million are now estimated
to have been internally displaced by civil war and sectarian cleansing
within Iraq.
These numbers are staggering in a population
estimated in the pre-invasion years at only 26 million. At a bare
minimum, in other words, at least one out of every seven Iraqis has had
to flee his or her home due to the violence and chaos set off by the
Bush administration's invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Yet, as
even the UN officials on the scene admit, these are undoubtedly low-end
estimates. "We rely heavily on the official numbers given to us by the
Syrian government concerning the Iraqi refugees coming here,"
Sybella
Wilkes, the regional public information officer for the UNHCR told me,
while we talked recently at the
main refugee processing center in
Douma, a city on the outskirts of the Syrian capital. Even the high-end
UNHCR estimate of 1.2 million Iraqi refugees in Syria (a country of
only 17 million people) was, she told me, probably too low.
According
to Wilkes, the Syrian government, using tallies taken from its southern
border posts, privately estimates the number to be closer to 1.4-1.5
million Iraqis in Syria. The UNHCR operation here, desperately
under-funded and short of staff, does not have people on the border
tallying numbers and has no way to check on the real magnitude of the
disaster underway.
Yet, in their work, they can feel its
oppressive weight daily. Erdogan Kalkan, a 35-year-old Turkish UNHCR
employee of 15 years, told me that the overworked staff has already
scheduled a total of 35,000 appointments with refugees seeking aid in
Syria; only 25,000 of those have actually had their cases addressed --
and that barely scratches the surface of the problem. "We have been
increasing our processing capacity from the beginning," he said, while
puffing on a cigarette. We were speaking in a newly converted warehouse
where Iraqi families now can meet with UNHCR workers in cramped white
cubicles and be interviewed about why they left Iraq and what their
most immediate needs are.
UNHCR's budget for Iraqis in Syria
in 2006 was a bare $700,000, less than one dollar per refugee crossing
the border. UNHCR needs far greater financial resources even to begin
to help the mass of Iraqi refugees in the country, as well as food,
medicine, and aid from other UN agencies. At the moment, it is
essentially the only UN agency assisting Iraqis in Syria, Lebanon, and
Jordan. UNICEF and other UN agencies have voiced interest, but as yet
have provided little support in Syria, according to Kalkan.
Adham
Mardini, the public information assistant for UNHCR in Damascus, told
me their budget in Syria has risen precipitously to $16 million for
2007, although that, too, remains far below what would be necessary
simply to fulfill the most basic needs of the most desperate of the
refugees. It adds up to a little over $13 per Iraqi refugee per year --
if you don't include the refugees in Syria from Somalia, Palestine,
Afghanistan, and other war-torn areas for whom UNHCR is also
responsible (along with UNHCR overhead). Iraqi refugees receive food
supplements from UNICEF, but only in the most severe cases of need, and
cash is simply unavailable for distribution.
Back in late
2006, UNHCR in Damascus started out as the most modest of operations --
with two processing clerks, each seeing between five and seven cases
daily. Now, there are 25 clerks processing more than 200 cases daily,
not to mention guards, drivers, new computers, a Red Crescent aid
station at the center, a new bathroom, and plans for adding a child
center, psychological counseling services, and a community center
before the Secretary General of the UN visits later this month.
Yet
all of this is still nowhere near enough to keep up with the implacable
flood of Iraqis entering Syria every month. Iraqis, who now comprise a
little over 8% of the population of this small country, tell stories
about why they left their land and what they are dealing with today,
which these numbers, staggering as they are, do not.
More Than Numbers
"I
left everything behind," Salim Hamad, a former railroad worker from
Baghdad, told me. "My house was empty when I left, and I have no idea
what became of it." We met in a small tea shop in the sprawling Yarmouk
refugee camp in Damascus. It is perhaps not inappropriate that Yarmouk
is primarily a Palestinian refugee camp, since the Iraqi diaspora
represents the largest exodus of refugees in the Middle East since the
state of Israel was created in 1948. The camp is an uninspiring mass of
high, grey apartment buildings through which snake crowded roads.
According to locals, tens of thousands of Iraqis have already joined
their ranks, with the numbers increasing daily, and Salim Hamad is not
atypical of the new arrivals.
Five months ago, Salim had to
sell his car, his furniture, and most of his other belongings simply to
raise enough money to bring his wife and three children to Syria. They
had grown tired and fearful, he told me, of seeing corpses in their
streets every day.
Because Jordan's pro-U.S. King Abdullah had
long since clamped down on Iraqi entry to his country, for Salim and
countless others, Syria has been the only available destination.
Yarmouk, with electricity and running water, is, in fact, one of the
better areas for refugees. The two other main refugee camps into which
Iraqis are now flooding, Jaramana and Sayada Zainab, present far
grimmer living conditions, including more than 10 people sleeping in
rooms without beds, lacking potable drinking water and in some cases
heat, and with intermittent electricity.
Other Iraqis are
living in poorer city neighborhoods, eating up their savings, sometimes
relying on the goodwill of Syrian friends or relatives. Given visa
restrictions, which prohibit Iraqis from working here (except, of
course, in the black market economy), when often meager savings run
out, the crisis is sure to worsen exponentially.
UNHCR
recently offered the following staggering projection: According to its
best estimates about 12% of Iraq's population, now assumed to be about
24 million people, will be displaced by the end of 2007. We're talking
about nearly 3 million ever more destitute Salim Hamads by the New
Year. (Add to that Iraq's growing population of internal refugees and
its spiraling civilian death tolls and you have the kind of decimation
of a nation rarely seen -- with, undoubtedly, more to come.)
A
report released March 22 by the NGO Refugees International calls the
flight of Iraqis from war-torn Iraq "the world's fastest growing
displacement crisis."
"The situation now is pushing Syria and
Jordan to the maximum," the UNCHR's Wilkes told me. "Syria's 'open
door' policy is extraordinary, but economically and socially we wonder
how long it can be maintained. We're very aware of the impact on these
governments this crisis is having. We're hoping the international
community will help share the burden."
The primary trigger for
this crisis was the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, and yet
President Bush and his top officials have taken no significant steps
whatsoever to share in the resulting refugee burden. To date, the
administration has issued only 466 visas to Iraqis. Under recent
pressure from the UN, it has said that it would offer an additional
7,000 visas -- but without either announcing the criteria for accepting
such refugees or even when the visas might be issued. Upon hearing this
paltry number, an Iraqi refugee said to me in disbelief: "Seven
thousand out of over four million Iraqis who have either fled their
country or are internally displaced?… I don't know if he could insult
us more if he tried."
"I ask all nations, particularly the
United States, to do all that they can to help us," was the way Qasim
Jubouri, a banker who fled Baghdad with his family in order to keep
them alive, put the matter to me. "Since the U.S. government caused all
of this, shouldn't they also be responsible for helping us now?"
Like
Salim, he too left for Syria with nothing more than some clothing and
his meager savings. Now, the money he brought is running out and he has
no idea how he will feed his family when it's gone.
Thirty-two
year-old
Ali Ahmed has a similar tale to tell. "I was a financial
manager of seven companies in Baghdad, but I had to leave my house, my
car, and just about everything." After militiamen fired on his car in
the once upscale Mansoor district of Baghdad, Ali fled to Jordan. He
returned to Iraq to try again, but once more faced death in an attack
in which six employees from his management firm were killed.
And
even that wasn't the end of it. "We had 11 engineers from one company
detained by the Mehdi Army [the militia of Shia cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr]. We never heard from them again. I knew then that I had to
drop everything and run for my life."
Ali does not see himself
returning soon. "I don't expect to go back for at least 15-20 years. I
have left everything behind, and now I have nothing but a small food
store I run here. But it is not enough. Not the UN, nor any government,
least of all the Iraqi government, is doing enough to help us." (The
Syrian government, thus far, maintains a policy of looking the other
way when it comes to modest or menial jobs Iraqis find which don't put
Syrians out of work.)
Another Iraqi refugee told me of being
detained by Mehdi Army militia members and having a rod forced down his
throat as part of his "interrogation." He was lucky to come out of the
experience alive. Many, on either side of the worsening sectarian
struggle, do not. The slaughter of Sunnis by the Medhi Army and the
slaughter of Shiites by Sunni extremist groups have become commonplace.
Despite the fact that Sadr recently ordered his militia to
focus all its attacks on occupation forces, scores of dead bodies
turning up on Baghdad's streets each day prove otherwise.
Iraqis
who worked with, or have been in any way associated with, the American
military or occupation authorities are faring at least as badly, if not
worse. Everyone collaborating in any way with U.S. forces in Iraq is
now targeted -- along with their families.
"I used to work
with the Americans near Kut," Sa'ad Hussein, a 34-year-old electrical
engineer told me, "I worked for Kellogg, Brown, and Root [then a
subsidiary of oil-services giant Halliburton] to construct an Iraqi
base there until I got my death threat on a piece of paper slipped
under my door on my return to Baghdad. I had no choice but to flee."
"Things
are getting so much worse in Iraq," was the way Salim Hamad, who fled
five months ago, summed up life in his former homeland as our interview
was ending. "There is a big difference between those who left four
years ago and those who left four days ago. Everything in Iraq is based
on sectarianism now and there is no protection -- neither from the
Americans, nor the Iraqi government."
Fleeing "Freedom and Democracy"
Sa'ad
Hussein, who arrived in Damascus only three months ago, described the
Baghdad he left as a "city of ghosts" where the black banners of death
announcements hang on most streets. There is, he claimed (and this was
verified by others we spoke to among the more recent refugees),
normally only one hour of electricity a day and no jobs to be found.
"I
was an ex-captain in the Iraqi Army, and I think that's why I was
threatened, in addition to working with the occupation authorities," he
explained. When asked how many of his former Sunni army colleagues had
also received death threats, he replied, "All of them." It was not
safe, he told me, for him to go back to the now largely Shi'ite Iraqi
Army because, "I may be killed. This is the new freedom and democracy
we have."
On all measurable levels, life in Baghdad, now well
into the fifth year of U.S. occupation, has become hellish for Iraqis
who have attempted to remain, which, of course, only adds to the
burgeoning numbers who daily become part of the exodus to neighboring
lands. It is generally agreed that the delivery of security,
electricity, potable water, health care, and jobs -- that is, the
essentials of modern urban life -- are all significantly worse than
during the last years of the reign of Saddam Hussein.
"The
Americans are detaining so many people," Ali Hassan, a 41-year-old from
the Hay Jihad area of Baghdad said as we spoke in front of the central
UNHCR office in downtown Damascus. "And my brother was killed by
Shi'ite militiamen after he refused to give them the keys to empty
Sunni houses we were looking after."
As scores of other
refugees crowded around photographer Jeff Pflueger and me, wanting to
tell their stories, Hassan, a Shi'ite who also fled Baghdad just three
months ago, added, "Now I can't go back. I am a refugee and I still
don't feel secure because I still fear the Mehdi Army."
"So
many Iraqis never leave their homes now because they are too afraid to
go out due to the militias," Abdul Abdulla, a 68-year-old who fled
Baghdad with his family insisted, having literally grabbed the
microphone I was using to tape my interview with Hassan.
From
the volatile Yarmouk area of Baghdad, Abdulla, a Sunni, said Shia
militia members waited on the outskirts of his neighborhood in order to
detain anyone trying to leave. "We stayed in our homes, but even then
some people were being detained from their own houses. These death
squads started coming after [former U.S. ambassador John] Negroponte
arrived. And the Iraqi Government is definitely involved because they
depend on [the militias]."
While talking with Abdulla, I
noticed a woman in a black abaya or gown covering her entire body, one
of her arms in a cast, standing nearby.
When I approached
Eman
Abdul Rahid, a 46-year-old mother from Baghdad, she willingly told me
her sad story, all too typical of civilian life in the Iraqi capital
today. "I was injured," she said, "because I was near a car bomb, which
killed my daughter… There is killing, and threats of more killing, and
explosions daily in Baghdad."
"America is the reason why Iraq
was invaded, so we would like the American administration to give aid
to us refugees," she added, "I would like people to read this and tell
Bush to help us."
Six Months and Counting
Sundays and
Mondays at the
UNHCR refugee processing center in Douma are mob scenes.
Refugees, some of whom have been waiting several months for their first
interview at the center, an event crucial to finding aid, arrive in
taxis, minibuses, on foot, or on buses specially hired by UNHCR. They
line up outside a freshly painted white and blue gate, manned by
security guards, and slowly trickle into the converted warehouse to
wait eagerly for their names and numbers to be called.
On one
of my Monday visits, as my friend Jeff and I approached the
warehouse-turned-processing center there were more than 1,000 Iraqis
crowded around the entrance hoping to get in. Taxis honked their way
through the gathering crowds of refugees, each of whom held a number
representing his or her place in line, along with passports and other
required papers.
As we were being escorted inside the center
by UNHCR public information assistant Adham Mardini, he told us that
the previous day between 6,000 and 7,000 Iraqi refugees had descended
on the place. On that day alone, 2,179 future appointments had been
scheduled, each representing an average of 3.6 people, since many of
them are set by the heads of families.
"Sundays and Mondays
are always crazy here because these are the days we set their
appointments," he commented. "And these people now have to wait up to
six months just for their interview."
Some Iraqis showing up
are, however, in need of emergency care. Refugees often arrive without
medicines, and with serious heart problems, kidney failure, sizeable
burns across their bodies, or ill-healed wounds -- and that's not even
to speak of the psychological problems they face from violence seen or
experienced or from lives completely uprooted. All of this, the
minimalist UNHCR center must try to face. A surprising number of
arrivals are simply put in ambulances to be taken either to local
hospitals or treated by the Syrian Red Crescent.
Under a
makeshift roof outside the warehouse but inside the outer gate,
families lucky enough to have their numbers come up on this day are
filling out forms. Men stand writing on sheets of paper pressed against
walls; women hold crying babies amid the cacophony and chaos.
Periodically, a UNHCR volunteer appears at the door of the building
with a bullhorn to announce the names of those who should prepare to be
interviewed. Most of them have been waiting at least four months for
this day.
Iraqis continue to crowd through the door from the
road as I talk with Mardini. "As you can see, the Baghdad security plan
is working very well," he says with a wry smile. From hundreds of miles
away, it's his organization which is providing what "security" is
available and it can't hope to keep up with the steadily increasing
numbers of desperate Iraqis.
To make matters worse, UNHCR
officials have been noticing an increase in Kurdish refugees from the
previously more peaceable northern regions of Iraq. "Over 50% of all
newcomers in the last two weeks are Kurds," Kalkan, the UNHCR veteran
of 15 years whom I'd spoken with before, says as he joins Mardini and
me at the door. The two of them express a modest mix of frustration and
discouragement, given the circumstances. After all, just as UNHCR in
Damascus begins to ramp up to accommodate the massive numbers of
refugees they have to deal with, the flow increases confoundingly.
Perhaps
an hour later, when we make our way back to the street, the hoard of
refugees has miraculously dwindled to only a few dozen forlorn Iraqis
outside the now-closed door. We can't understand what made them all
disappear so quickly.
"I came here three times to get this
appointment because it was so crowded,"
an Iraqi doctor tells me, as he
holds number 525, showing his place in line. "I arrived today at five
AM with my family of eleven for this appointment and now they have
postponed it!"
He had been one away in line when the door was
closed for the day. Due to the burgeoning number of refugees, half the
UNHCR interviewers had to be shifted to the task of scheduling future
appointments for newcomers. Thus, half of the interviews for this day
had been cancelled.
"Now I have to wait another two months,"
the doctor told me, as I stared into his tired eyes. He's still holding
his number in his hand as a small crowd begins to build around us and
others start to pour out similar stories of frustration and despair. As
voices rise in frustration, Jeff flashes me a look of concern and we
decide to thank them for their time and move on. Other than writing
their collective tale of woe and taking their photos to show the world
the faces of this growing crisis, there is little else we can do.
Abu Talat
Since the shock-and-awe invasion of Iraq began in March 2003, that country's explosive unraveling has never left the news or long been off the front page. Yet the fallout beyond its borders from the destruction, disintegration, and ethnic mayhem in Iraq has almost avoided notice. And yet with -- according to United Nations estimates -- approximately 50,000 Iraqis fleeing their country each month (and untold numbers of others being displaced internally), Iraq is producing one of the -- if not the -- most severe refugee crisis on the planet, a crisis without a name and without significant attention. 
