Fear and longing for Baghdad

So when his pride hits a new low, he remembers that day. “Despite all the hardships I face here, it is better than going back to Baghdad,” said Ali, long-faced with a sharp chin, who wore a thick red sweat shirt and rubbed his hands to keep warm. “They will behead me. What else can I do? I have no choice.”

As the fourth year of war nears its end, the Middle East’s largest refugee crisis since the Palestinian exodus from Israel in 1948, is unfolding in a climate of fear, persecution and tragedy. Nearly 2 million Iraqis — about 8 per cent of the prewar population — have embarked on a desperate migration, mostly to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The refugees include large numbers of doctors, academics and other professionals vital for Iraq’s recovery. Another 1.7 million have been forced to move to safer towns and villages inside Iraq, and as many as 50,000 Iraqis a month flee their homes, the UN agency said in January.

The rich began trickling out of Iraq as conditions deteriorated under UN sanctions in the 1990s, their flight growing in the aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion. Now, as the violence worsens, increasing numbers of poor Iraqis are on the move, aid officials say. To flee, Iraqis sell their possessions, raid their savings and borrow money from relatives. They ride buses or walk across terrain riddled with criminals and Sunni insurgents, preferring to risk death over remaining in Iraq.

The UN is struggling to find funding to assist Iraqi refugees. Fewer than 500 have been resettled in the US since the invasion. Aid officials and human rights activists say the US and other Western nations are focused on reconstructing Iraq while ignoring the war’s human fallout.

“It’s probably political,” said Janvier de Riedmatten, UN refugee agency representative for Iraq, referring to the reason why the world hasn’t helped Iraq’s refugees. “The Iraq story has to be a success story.”

For decades, Jordan welcomed refugees. Roughly a third of its 5.9 million residents are Palestinian refugees. According to the UN, 500,000 to 700,000 Iraqi refugees live in Jordan, but aid officials say the actual number is nearer to 1 million because many Iraqis live under the radar. Jordan’s tolerance has waned, however, since a group of Iraqis bombed three hotels in November 2005, killing 60 people, according to Iraqis, aid officials and human rights groups. The government fears that Iraq’s mostly Sunni Arab refugees could remain in the country permanently or become recruits for Iraq’s insurgency.

Now, the exodus is generating friction and anger across the region, while straining basic services in already poor countries. Iraqis are blamed for driving up prices and taking away scarce jobs. Iraq’s neighbours worry the new refugees will carry in Iraq’s sectarian strife. Into their new havens, Iraqis are bringing their culture and way of life, gradually reshaping the face of the Arab world. But the cost of escape is high. Feeding the bitterness of exile is a sense that outside forces created their plight. Many Iraqis here view the US-led invasion that ousted President Saddam Hussein as the root of their woes. “We were promised a kind of heaven on earth,” said Rabab Haider, who fled Baghdad last year. “But we’ve been given a real hell.”

The road out of Iraq begins on Salhiye Street in Baghdad. On January 13, knots of Iraqis waited to board 14 buses to Syria. Inside a travel agency, Raghed Moyed, 23, sat solemnly with her 12-year-old brother, Amar. It had become too dangerous for her to attend college, so she was heading to Damascus to continue her education. As she sat, her head bowed, she recalled the previous night, when she bade farewell to her friends.

“It’s really sad,” said Moyed, her voice cracking as tears slid down her face. “I cried the whole way from the house to here. I don’t want to leave Iraq, but it is hard to stay.” Sameer Humfash, the travel agent, watched her cry. By his estimate, 50 to 60 families were fleeing each day on the buses lined up outside. Nowadays, Iraqis were heading mostly to Syria, he said.

“They are not letting Iraqis in at the Jordanian border,” interrupted Ahmed Khudair, one of Humfash’s employees. Humfash makes all his passengers sign waiver forms that read: “I am traveling on my own responsibility and God is the only one that protects us.” On the roads to both Jordan and Syria, Sunni insurgents have dragged Shiites from buses and executed them. Humfash stays in radio contact every hour with the bus driver, usually a Syrian. He always asks three questions, he said: “How is the road? Did they take any passengers? Did they hurt any passengers?”

A taste of Baghdad

Rabab Haider and her husband, Ibrahim al-Shawy, live in an elegant, sunlit apartment in Amman. Along with other middle-class Iraqis, they live in a parallel Iraq.

Many of their relatives and friends are here. Iraq’s sectarian divisions rarely enter their lives.

The richest Iraqis can get residency permits by depositing $70,000 in a Jordanian bank, buying property or investing. Others simply pay a $2 daily fine for expired permits.

“I see more Iraqis here than I do in Baghdad,” said Shawy, who travels every few months to Iraq, where he owns land. Qaduri, a popular restaurant nearby, was once an institution in Baghdad. Then it was bombed. Seven months ago, its owners decided to resurrect it in Amman. Now it serves tashreeb, a traditional Iraqi stew, from midnight to noon, just as it did in Baghdad.

Next door, a sign reads that another restaurant plans to open soon. Its specialty: pacha, the dish of boiled lamb’s head that Iraqis consider a delicacy.

At a recent Iraqi wedding in the upscale Bristol Hotel, an Iraqi singer sang songs and guests moved to the drumbeats of the jobee, an Iraqi folk dance.

In Baghdad, with the car bombs, checkpoints and kidnappings, large weddings are all but extinct. “You turned the clock back four years,” Um Ammar, a guest who had recently arrived from Baghdad, told the groom’s mother. The singer began to hum a patriotic Iraqi hymn. In the audience, eyes filled with tears. Others sobbed. Moments later, the singer crooned: “Baghdad.” The audience responded: “In my eyes is heaven.” “Baghdad,” the singer sang again. “Is our one and only love,” the audience sang. “Baghdad is our sole mother, may God safeguard you from the evil surrounding you.”

On a January afternoon, over cake and coffee in their Amman apartment, Haider and Shawy spoke of nostalgia, guilt and uncertainty. “What about the torment?” said Haider, a pleasant, short-haired woman with a faint British accent. “You being safe and your people in Baghdad are not.”

They have six months of savings left, Shawy said. He’s sending résumés around the world. “How long can we keep this?” asked Haider, looking at their plush sofas, the purple vase, the glass dining table.

–SUDARSAN RAGHAVAN