The Iraqi Exodus
Nearly 2 million have fled, but that could be just a drop in the bucket
The gunman stood at the foot of his bed. "Are you al-Jaboury?" he yelled. It was 2 o'clock on a stifling July morning, and al-Jaboury had been sound asleep next to his wife. After hearing his name, the young Iraqi police officer didn't hesitate. Grabbing the gun he had been stashing under his pillow every night since he'd joined the police 18 months earlier, he shot the intruder in the throat. The gunman's accomplices all fled.
But the danger wasn't over. "I knew the insurgents would come back, and maybe they would blow up the whole house," al-Jaboury says. "My wife blamed me for joining the police. She said that I am a Sunni and that I know that the insurgents don't like this, and that I would get killed sooner or later." The next day, al-Jaboury left his wife, his daughter, and his home in the troubled Diyala province and took off in a neighbor's pickup truck, loaded with fruit, and headed for Syria. He had $300 in his pocket.
For the past few months, al-Jaboury has just been scraping by in a Damascus suburb packed with poor Iraqis. Back in Iraq, insurgents continue to threaten his wife, telling her that the only part of al-Jaboury they want back is his head. Today, al-Jaboury works in a small Syrian hotel, making $10 a day, plus room and board. "I am living a disgusting life now," he says, "and I can't take the idea of cleaning toilets after being a policeman cleaning society." His chief goal now: making enough money to rent an apartment to be able to send for his wife and child to join him in Syria. "I think," he says, "that will take a long time."
Like al-Jaboury, an average of 2,000 Iraqis a day are fleeing to Syria–and the numbers appear to be growing. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that at least 700,000 Iraqis have taken refuge in Syria, while an additional 700,000 or so are in Jordan. (Iraq's estimated population is 27 million.) Few of the refugees have any legal protections, leaving them hostage to the whims of local government officials and reluctant even to divulge their full names.
While some had fled during Saddam Hussein's reign, most have arrived since the U.S. invasion, desperate to escape the spiraling violence. The numbers jumped sharply after the bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra last February that intensified Iraq's sectarian strife. With Iraq slipping toward an all-out civil war amid record numbers of civilians being killed each month, a UNHCR official warns that hundreds of thousands more Iraqis appear to be "teetering" on the brink of departure. Even U.S. officials, many of whom have previously downplayed refugee flows, now acknowledge they are increasingly concerned. "We do know the trend is growing," says a State Department official.
"Brain drain." The tide of refugees is just one of the more visible symptoms of the regional spillover from the chaos in Iraq. Amid concerns that the violence could eventually spread across the border, calls for a more regional approach to Iraq have been intensifying. The Iraq Study Group, created by the U.S. Congress to search for new policy options in Iraq and led by former Secretary of State James Baker, is set to release its keenly awaited report this week. One anticipated recommendation will call for the Bush administration to open a dialogue with Iran and Syria. President Bush was in Jordan last week to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, while Iraqi President Jalal Talabani made a high-profile visit to Iran.
For now, few governments want to discuss the refugee problem. In Iraq, the accelerating migration has produced a debilitating "brain drain," which is leaving the nation ever less capable of managing its own affairs. Most of the Iraqis who have left are the ones who could afford to do so–the wealthy and the middle class. Insurgents have focused much of their ire on professionals–targeting doctors, civil servants, teachers, and even hairdressers. In exile, these middle-class Iraqis are now living off their quickly dwindling savings and, if they are lucky, some meager wages.
Most alarming, few of the refugees appear to anticipate going home anytime soon–if at all. A U.N. survey of Iraqis in Syria found that only a fifth intended to return to Iraq. "Most refugees refuse to go back," says Kristele Younes, who recently returned from interviewing Iraqi refugees in Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon for Refugees International, an advocacy group. "Because revenge can carry on from one generation to another, some of them can never go back." In all, the UNHCR estimates that as many as 1.8 million Iraqis now live outside the country. Most receive little help. Human Rights Watch, a New York-based watchdog, issued a report last week criticizing Iraq's neighbors for not doing enough to assist the displaced Iraqis: "Generally Iraqis throughout the Middle East remain unregistered, uncounted, unassisted, and unprotected."
There are few more vulnerable than Khawla Hamed Saadallah. Her first husband was killed during Iraq's war with Iran. Her second was killed, she says, by U.S. soldiers who raided their home in Mosul six months ago. U.S. soldiers returned two days later with $1,500 in compensation ($200 of which went to an interpreter and a lawyer). "I was left with $1,300–homeless, with three children to raise," she says, "and with a tragic memory in a country where your life is worthless and so cheap in the eyes of others." She went to Syria with her younger brother, who found work in an Iraqi-run bakery. Her two sons, 7 and 8 years old, dropped out of school to work in the bakery, as well.
Most of the Iraqis in Syria are slightly better off, at least for now. Syria has been relatively tolerant, admitting many Iraqi children to public schools free. Jobs remain more difficult to find, however, since few Iraqis have work permits. Toma Georges, an Iraqi Christian, has been lucky. He fled Baghdad a year ago after his church was bombed on the same day as six other churches. Even before that, he was, like many other Iraqi Christians, being threatened by extremists on both sides. Sunni insurgents had forced him to stop selling alcohol at the supermarket he owned, while pressure from Shiite militias forced his wife to start wearing the hijab, or Islamic head covering, in public. "So in our days of democracy and freedom, I had a Christian wife wearing the hijab, and me, a Christian supermarket owner living in a Christian neighborhood, not selling alcoholic drinks." Today, Georges owns his own supermarket in Syria and rents apartments to other Iraqis. "I make good money now from selling alcoholic drinks, and I am also happy to see my wife's blond hair lighting up my life again," he says. "There are times when you feel homesick, but when I remember the burnt church and when I see the happiness in my children's eyes, I think that leaving my country was for the best of all."
Iraqis like Georges have helped transform some Damascus suburbs into enclaves that have become faithful re-creations of Iraq. In the suburb of Sayeda Zenab, which boasts one of the highest concentrations of Iraqis in Syria, it is almost possible for Iraqis to forget that they are even in Syria. On a street that everyone now calls "Iraq Street," vendors sell all kinds of goods imported from Iraq, from soap and cigarettes to clothes and shoes. Iraqi restaurants sell Iraqi dishes, cooked by Iraqi chefs, using special Iraqi cooking oil, Iraqi rice, Iraqi beans, and, perhaps most important, piping hot and fresh Iraqi flatbread. "I open my bakery from 5:30 in the morning and close after midnight," says Samer Sallah, a 23-year-old Iraqi baker whose shop is on the street. "I make a lot of profit because Iraqis come from all over to here to buy Iraqi bread, because a lot of Iraqis don't like to eat Syrian bread."
Even one of Iraq's most famous kebab joints (called Zarzoor) has opened a branch on Iraq Street. Every day, bus drivers arrive at the restaurant from Iraq to deliver coolers of Iraqi ground beef. Food is a particular concern for Iraqis, whose diet traditionally includes generous amounts of meat. Syrians tend to eat more cheese, yogurt, and olives. A Syrian man sitting with an Iraqi family eating a lunch of kebabs one day turns and asks them, "Do you know what the difference is between you and us? We eat in order to live, but you Iraqis live in order to eat."
These Iraqi enclaves have assumed an odd permanence. In another Damascus suburb packed with Iraqis, Syrian taxi drivers now refer to streets by the names of Iraqi cities–Fallujah Street, Ramadi Street, Baghdad Street–because of the concentrations of Iraqis from these cities who have settled on each street. Other businesses have evolved to help Iraqis extend their stays in Syria–most are in the country on visas that cannot be extended beyond six months. Several Iraqi tourist companies now offer one-day bus trips to Lebanon for $20 a person, in order to return to Syria with a new visa.
For Syrians, the Iraqi influx has meant higher prices. The cost of basics like eggs and tomatoes has soared. "Iraqis are our brothers, and Syria is their country," says Jaber Nad, a Syrian civil servant, "but we the poor are being crushed by the rise in prices of all products since they came."
The strains are particularly evident in housing, with Iraqis snapping up rental apartments. In one real estate office in Mezza, a Damascus suburb, an Iraqi doctor named Ryad is trying to find an apartment for friends who will be arriving soon from Iraq. A Syrian man who is looking for a rental for his newly married son pipes up. "You Iraqis don't leave us a place to live in, even in our own country," he tells Ryad. "I used to rent the best flat in Mezza for [$150] a month and now I must pay [$400] for the worst flat here." Ryad bristles. "Do you think that we Iraqis are that rich?" he retorts. "Do you think I am a tourist here on vacation? I came to save my family from any danger that might occur to them in Iraq."
"Pressure cooker." As the number of refugees continues to increase, Iraq's neighbors are growing less receptive. Some, like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, have barred them altogether. Human Rights Watch criticized Jordan last week for turning back growing numbers of Iraqis at the border and for discouraging Iraqis from sending their children to Jordanian schools. Jordan's approach shifted, the group said, after the bombings last year of three Amman hotels by several Iraqis. Even in Syria, which has traditionally welcomed Iraqis, attitudes have hardened, with Iraqis finding more restrictions on access to health facilities. Still, Syria is quickly becoming the only option. "They are the only country dealing with this head-on," says Sean Garcia, an advocate with Refugees International who recently returned from a visit to Syria. "If Syria was to shut that border, it would create a pressure cooker in Iraq where people being targeted couldn't escape the violence."
Many of the Iraqi refugees are beginning to run out of money, squeezed by costly rent and Syria's high unemployment. Faleh Kasem, a 28-year-old computer technician, works in a Syrian Internet cafe making $200 a month, which does not even cover his $400 monthly rent. "If it wasn't for the help I get from my father in Baghdad, I could not have survived," he says. Iraqis working in Syrian factories make even less–as little as 30 cents an hour. A former prominent Iraqi ambassador under Saddam's regime fled soon after the invasion to Syria, where he is living entirely off the remains of his life savings. "When it runs out, I will start to sell whatever I have left in Iraq to keep my family alive," he says.
What little money many Iraqi men do make often gets spent on Al Rabwa Street in Damascus, famous for its nightlife. While most of the nightclubs used to cater to visiting Kuwaitis and Saudis, many are now filled largely with Iraqis. Al Rawaby is one of the most popular clubs, starting its nightly entertainment at 11 p.m. and not wrapping up until 6 a.m. Iraqis pack the club to drink and listen to famous Iraqi singers like Hussam al Rassam, known for his sad tunes about the violence in Iraq and the wave of migration. Ali Fouad, a 23-year-old Iraqi working in a clothing store, saves up his meager earnings for the $30 entrance fee. "It makes me feel at home to see this Iraqi crowd and our famous singers as they sing about our country," he says. "We all, Sunni and Shiite, feel as one Iraqi family, just like before, as we clap our hands hard when the name of our country is brought up in a song."
With Amer Saleh in Syria
This story appears in the December 11, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.