Witnessing the Iraqi Refugee Crisis in Amman

On August 9, 2009, nearly seven years since my last trip to the Middle East, I arrived at the Queen Alia Airport in Amman, Jordan. From there, I took a bus into the city and then a taxi to the home of Sasha Crow, the founder of Collateral Repair Project, a grassroots organization formed to connect Iraqi refugee families with social services in Amman. 

Sasha had prepared a home-cooked meal for the two of us to share as we made plans for the first day of a children’s art and culture camp. The camp was intended to bring together Iraqi, Palestinian, and Jordanian children for two weeks of creative activities. It was a joint effort of Collateral Repair Project and International Relief & Development, an NGO with offices in Amman.

Working with Omar, an Iraqi volunteer with CRP, and a team of dedicated assistants, Sasha and I launched our program the following day. Over the next two weeks, she took the lead in organizing a wonderful mix of hands on art activities for the children. Under her careful and loving attention, they created their own papier-mâché masks, drew portraits of each other, and even made a pair of treat-filled piñatas. In addition to assisting Sasha, I told Arabic folktales to the children, led them in creative movement exercises, and directed them in a dramatic enactment of a traditional tale.

For the final day of our summer camp, the children’s families were invited to come to the Women’s Center where the camp was held. After viewing a display of the art work, they watched their children perform on stage. During the show, the children wore the colorful masks they had worked so hard to create. Many of them also used the paper puppets Sasha had them make for their characters in the play. As a final celebration, the children gathered around their piñatas (one piñata at a time!) and gave them enough good whacks to break them open.

Helping to run the camp with Sasha was only part of what I did with Collateral Repair Project. In the evenings, she and Omar introduced me to some of the Iraqi refugee families CRP has been assisting. For me, these meetings were the heart and soul of my time in Amman.

I had come to Jordan hoping to hear the stories of what these families had endured in Iraq and what their lives were like in Amman. Upon returning to the U.S., I planned to share these stories, through articles and talks, in order to raise awareness of the consequences of the U.S. invasion and occupation. Thanks to CRP, I was able to meet quite a number of families from a variety of backgrounds. For this entry, I would like to recount one such meeting as an example of the very high price these families have had to pay and of the good work CRP is doing. The text is from my journal, which I kept up the whole time I was in Amman. (I have not used the real names of the family members.)

“Tonight we visited another family whom Sasha cares deeply about. The family is Assyrian and comes from Baghdad, although their roots are in Anbar, which is north of the capital. James met us on the street that runs past his building, and then took us up a short flight of stairs to his family’s apartment. His sister Miriam and his elderly mother Hajia were sitting in the front room watching TV. CRP, through donations, was able to purchase a prosthetic leg for James’s sister. Since then, they have come to feel very close to Sasha, whom they regard as their saving grace.

“James calls Sasha his sister. His mother considers Sasha her daughter. Hajia is only 81 but she looks much older. After her husband died, she had to raise their children by herself. In Iraq the family lived in Baghdad Jadida (New Baghdad), where many Iraqi Christians once lived before they were driven from their homes.

“The family has successfully completed all their interviews with IOM (the International Organization for Migration) and expect to be resettled in the state of New York. But they don’t know when their plane tickets will arrive. Their home is practically bare of furniture. A few decorative items adorn the walls. In the parlor, there are some Christian iconic images along with paintings of English royalty. James’s mother named her two sons after British kings. The namesake of one of her daughters was a British queen.

“At one point during our conversation, James said all they have left is Jesus. Everything else in their lives has been taken away from them. He spat out the name of Saddam Hussein and, stretching out his arm, shouted, “Go to Hell! He destroyed everything.”

“James did agree that under Saddam, Christian minorities were safer and not likely to be persecuted, but still discrimination did exist. Before the war in 2003, he and his non-Christian neighbors were friends. But after the war, everything changed. People threatened him, told him to leave Iraq or they would kill him.

“Last fall in Baghdad, while shopping in the market, James’s sister Miriam became the victim of a car bombing. She had to have part of her right leg amputated. She also lost hearing in her right ear. She had been a secondary school teacher for 27 years. Her subject was mathematics. Several of her students were killed from the same bomb that disabled her for life. Shrapnel tore into her body. She pulled up the left leg of her trousers and showed us several deep scars from the shrapnel. While brother and sister described this tragic event, their mother Hajia, with a look of such deep sadness, openly wept for her daughter’s pain and suffering.

“Miriam spent 3 weeks in Al Kindi Hospital in Baghdad. Surgeons amputated the lower part of her leg but left a bony stump. In November, about a month after the bombing, the family left for Jordan. In Amman, Miriam received a heavy prosthetic leg, which she and Sasha refer to as the “dinosaur.” It hurts her to wear it. Now she has a lighter prosthetic which she saves for special occasions like going to church. Miriam is afraid it will be damaged on the many broken steps and fractured pavements in Amman. She knows it is strong and durable, but it has become so important to her that she doesn’t want to take any unnecessary risks with it. Around the house, she wears a third prosthetic. This one doesn’t fit well and causes her unrelenting pain.

“When Sasha first met her, Miriam never went outside and, without a prosthetic, crawled from room to room, becoming more and more depressed. Now her mood has brightened considerably, and she was able to talk freely with us. She showed us photos of her former students, her colleagues, and even her college graduating class.

“James smoked furiously while an Assyrian TV station showed the carnage from yesterday’s car bombings in Mosul and Baghdad. He changed the channel. The screen came alive with Assyrian singers and musicians performing while young people did traditional dances. Pointing to the television, James said, “This our people. This our music, our dances.” Tears filled his eyes. It was this moment, perhaps more than any other, that gave me a deeper sense of what it means to be separated from one’s homeland, one’s culture, and one’s family, and to face an almost unbearably uncertain future.

“James had been an agricultural engineer in Baghdad after graduating from Baghdad University. He showed us his transcript and proudly pointed to his grades. He hopes this document will improve his chances in the U.S., and wanted to know if he would be able to advance himself there. I recalled my own family and how my grandfather had come from Italy with nothing. By the time I was in high school, my own parents had advanced far beyond my father’s family. This seemed to offer some assurance to Edward whose love for his aged mother was so evident throughout our stay. He often stood by her side as she sat on the sofa with hands folded in her lap, and touched her ever so gently while thanking God for keeping her alive.

“When it was time for Sasha and I to leave, James followed us down an unlit stairway and along an alley to the street. Like a good shepherd, he watched over us until a taxi stopped and took us home.”

Family Update

I've just completed the latest newsletter for the Iraq Family Relief Fund and will be mailing out hard copies to donors. The electronic version will be available on this blog in another day or two. The big story, as far as the families go, is Amal Maseer's re-settlement in New Paltz, New York where she and her 3 children are now living. The children are slowly adjusting to their new life. Abeer, 17, Amal's oldest, attended her junior prom this month. She went with her girlfriends and, I have no doubt, looked absolutely lovely. Abeer's brothers, Anoush and Omer, are doing exceptionally well in school, according to their mom. Both boys are now taking hip hop dance lessons in addition to enjoying other extracurricular activities.

In March when my wife and I drove to New Paltz to visit the family, I gave the boys a used Apple laptop. It's a very old model with no Internet access and less than one gigabyte of memory. But its word processing software still gets the job done. The boys use this computer for some of their homework assignments even while they enjoy poking fun at its relative antiquity. Amal told me that the first night they had the computer they took turns making up jokes about the laptop's age. Anoush told his brother it was so old it once belonged to Cleopatra. Omer said the screen would show them what the Hanging Gardens of Babylon actually looked like. And so on. Several months have gone by since our visit and they're still making up jokes like these.

At least Omer and his family are not dodging bullets in Baghdad or reeling from car bomb explosions. Sadly, this past Wednesday a car bomb went off in a poor, Shia neighborhood in the capital. It happened around 7 in the evening while people were shopping or sitting in restaurants. The death toll now stands at 41 with over 76 people wounded.

As far as I know, nobody in our Baghdad families was hurt. I won't know for sure until one of them calls me. These days I can't phone any of them since their land lines are usually out of service. They have to borrow a mobile phone in order to get in touch with me. I did receive one phone message today. It was from Siham, a mother with 4 sons. She told me she is very sick and hopes I can send her enough to buy some groceries for her family.

The Iraqi government continues to provide food rations. The food rationing system was begun under Saddam's regime when U.S. and UK-enforced sanctions were devastating the economy. The rations were never adequate but they did prevent starvation. Today, despite the lifting of sanctions, many families still depend on government-supplied rations. Our families in Baghdad tell me that rations are much less than they used to be and only include a portion of the items that once were part of the monthly food basket. Because of this shortfall, families have to shop in the local markets where food prices are much higher than they were before the invasion.

Siham's family does not have a reliable source of income to cover the cost of food. Her husband is too sick to work. One of her two older sons has a job but his wages are very low. In order to put food on the table for her family, Siham regularly runs up a tab at the stores where she shops. The Family Relief Fund is critical to helping this family keep its grocery debt under control by providing a monthly food subsidy.

A Brief Reflection

I had my eyes examined today. The doctor is a friend who happens to be Iraqi. Two of his sisters have opened a restaurant/tea room down the road from his office. Judging by appearances, they are doing well despite the current downturn. Their parents, originally from Baghdad, have become pillars of the community, respected, admired, and loved by their many friends. Their children, now adults with their own families, are highly successful, each in his or her way.

At one time, my wife and I happily counted ourselves as part of this remarkable Iraqi family. During the years of U.S.-enforced sanctions against Iraq, I sometimes visited their relatives in Baghdad and brought back photographs, gifts, and weighty boxes of a traditional Iraqi confection called min' simma, which literally means "from the sky" in Arabic. (It's somewhat like torrone, an Italian nougat candy.) But in recent years, we've lost our connection with this family, and that is something my wife and I deeply regret.

On the drive home today, after my eye exam, I found myself thinking about their success and, in the same breath, about the Iraqi diaspora--the thousands of families displaced inside Iraq or living as refugees in neighboring countries as a result of the U.S. invasion and the violence that resulted. And I thought about organizations like Direct Aid Iraq and Collateral Repair Project, two grassroots efforts to assist displaced Iraqi families in Jordan. Each organization has both an American and an Iraqi team working together to connect families with social service providers.

The war in Iraq has created one of the gravest humanitarian crises in the world. The suffering of the Iraqi people continues despite the recent decrease in violence. So what are successful Iraqis in this country doing to ameliorate this suffering and end the occupation? Perhaps a more basic question is: are they obligated to do anything at all? Is it enough that they are doing their best to provide for themselves and their children while making invaluable contributions to their communities? Is anything more required? Then too, what are the rest of us doing to address the needs of the Iraqi people, including those who have come here seeking asylum, those who remain displaced, and the many others in Iraq living under occupation and with the ever-present threat of violence from one source or another?

(Photo: Iraqi refugee family)

Against All Odds

Over the weekend, my wife and I drove to New Paltz, New York to see Amal and her children, who have come here as refugees from Iraq. We hadn't seen each other for six very long years, the length of the U.S. occupation of Amal's homeland. We met in 1998 during my fourth trip to Baghdad as a peace activist, and have been close friends ever since. Now we are more like brother and sister. So reuniting after a six-year separation was a momentous occasion for both of us.

A few months before the U.S. invaded Iraq, I went to Iraq with Voices in the Wilderness (now renamed Voices for Creative Nonviolence). When it was time for me to leave, I had no idea when I would see Amal again or if she and her family would survive the military juggernaut looming in the background of our final days together. One of the most resourceful and resilient people I have ever known, Amal did indeed survive. She loves her children with a fierceness born of incessant struggle against what some might say were impossible odds. Time after time, Amal has risked her life for the sake of her children. Their safety and well being have been uppermost in her heart and mind through a six-year odyssey from Baghdad to Syria and then to Jordan.

Amal was not content to remain as a displaced Iraqi living in Amman with little hope of re-building her life. So she applied for the right to immigrate to the U.S., believing that immigration was the only path open to her and her children. Some of her friends doubted that she would ever be able to leave Amman and counseled her to return to Baghdad or move to some other country in the Middle East. After all, she lacks the sort of specialized skills that facilitate resettlement for some professionals, and she never worked for the U.S. military, so getting a special immigrant visa was out of the question.

Despite these obstacles, Amal would not give up. She is a fighter and for over three years she fought against despair, isolation, illness, and poverty to make her case known to immigration officials as well as to members of the U.S. Congress. And now she is here, living with her children in the home of an American family while grappling with yet another daunting set of challenges.

(Photo taken in New Paltz of Amal and her children with George and Nancy. The image on the wall is one of Amal's paintings.)

Iraqi Family Finds Asylum at Last

Right on schedule, Amal and her children landed at Newark International Airport on Tuesday, February 24 after three years of living as refugees in Amman, Jordan. Their host family welcomed them at the airport and drove them to their new home in upstate New York. I spoke with Amal a few days after her arrival. She is already looking for an affordable apartment and has enrolled her children in local schools. Thankfully, Amal is fluent in English. With the help of her sponsoring group, she is trying to locate the resources she'll need to create a life for herself and her children. It won't be easy for her since she has few technical skills and has arrived in the U.S. during a severe recession. But having lived through sanctions, war, and the brutal occupation of her country, Amal is truly a survivor and will do everything in her power to give her children a decent and dignified life.

The challenges Amal faces are enormous. Some Iraqi families, coming to the U.S. as refugees, have experienced few of the benefits they expected to find. Federal agencies in states where the families have re-settled can't always provide adequate assistance. Rather than endure degrading poverty, they have chosen to return to Iraq.

Before leaving Amman, Amal required immediate assistance to pay the last month's rent on her apartment, obtain transcripts of her children's grades, get the required vaccinations, and take care of other expenses. As the trustee of the Iraq Family Relief Fund, I sent out an appeal to past donors to raise enough money to cover Amal's needs while the family prepared to leave Jordan. The response from donors has been wonderfully generous. I was able to send Amal the assistance she needed and set aside the remaining donations for other needs that are sure to arise in the weeks and months ahead.

[Original drawing by Amal's daughter; colored pencil on paper]