Escape into insecurity: Iraqi refugees find a precarious home in Jordan

National Catholic Reporter, August 3, 2007 by Noah Merrill

Hussein is a mosaic artist. Many of the intricate, freely crafted mosaics on the wails of buildings throughout Amman are his work. A tile mosaic clock depicting the Tree of Life from the Garden of Eden hangs in his and Sarah's home, next to their wedding picture.

In Iraq, Hussein was conscripted at the age of 18, taken by the military from his high school just before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. He served in the military for three years, from 1991 to 1994. He also served in the reserves twice. After his release, he returned home to Nasiriyah, but there were no jobs. He tried getting work in Baghdad and in the north, but jobs were scarce while Iraq suffered under international sanctions. It was then that Hussein dedicated himself to saving enough money to fired a better life somewhere else--anywhere else. He heard prospects were better in Jordan, and he and his brother decided to go there when they could afford it.

In Amman, Hussein and Sarah have long overstayed their three-month visas. Without legal residency or a work permit, Hussein is paid poorly, maybe a quarter to half of what he would otherwise earn. Often people will hire him and then threaten to call the police if he doesn't accept a rate far lower than what he was promised.

Sarah and Hussein have applied separately and now together to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees for refugee status for four years. So far they have had no answer; UNHCR froze all new refugee determinations in 2003, when the U.S.-led invasion began.

Hussein's brother was working in a barber shop in Amman when the Jordanian police raided it for illegal immigrants. They checked IDs, and Hussein's brother was jailed for four days. Then the police took him to the Iraqi border and dropped him off on the other side. A few days later, Hussein got word that his brother had been killed while trying to get back to Nasiriyah.

"I know this is about 90 percent likely to happen to me too," he said. "If I get sent back, I'll be killed. Anyone in one of the [terrorist] groups in Al Anbar [the province he would have to travel through from the Jordanian border] will see me, and they will kill me. I come from a Shiah tribe."

Silence again. "And if I die, OK. But what would happen to Sarah if that happened? What would happen to her, alone here?"

Umm Muhammad

Umm Muhammad comes from the holy city of Najaf, in the south of Iraq. She is a plump, middle-aged woman with five children. As a result of past injuries and a botched operation, she has a glass eye in her left socket.

Her husband, an agronomist, worked against the regime of Saddam Hussein before the war. Because he refused to serve in the military, he was imprisoned by the Iraqi government, and his house and possessions were seized. After his first release, he was placed under house arrest but escaped to the north. His hope was to make it to Syria, but he was caught by Iraqi intelligence and sent back to prison for six months.

While her husband was in prison, the government sent security forces to Umm Muhammad's house to intimidate her. Finally, a gang was sent to her house to rape her daughter as retribution for the behavior of her husband. Luckily, her daughter wasn't home, so they beat Umm Muhammad, causing permanent damage to her skull and eye. The men threatened to return and rape her daughter in front of her. Her oldest daughter quit high school and married at 17 to avoid being raped by agents of the regime.