generalized violence for a temporary period of time. In theory this protected them without presenting the host countries with any formal obligations (though Syria had not deported Iraqis, Jordan and Lebanon had). Most Iraqis had not yet registered with the UN for temporary protection, but hundreds could be found lining up in front of the UNHCR office in Damascus in the early hours of the morning. Between February and April 2007 ten thousand Iraqi families, or at least fifty thousand individuals, had made appointments with the UNHCR.
“First the minorities left Iraq,” a UNHCR official told me, “now we get Sunnis targeted by Shiite militias.” Until February 2006 the majority had been Christians, although Muslims were represented as well, with Sunnis and Shiites equally represented. Starting in March 2006, though, the number of Sunni refugees shot up, far exceeding all other groups; July through September 2006 saw a sharp rise in Sunnis registering. Between January 2005 and the end of February 2007, 58,924 Iraqis registered with UNHCR in Damascus. Forty-two percent of those registered since December 2003 were Sunni, 21 percent were Shiite, and 29 percent were Christian. In January 2007, 3,144 Sunnis and 901 Shiites were registered. In February it was 5,988 Sunnis to 1,570 Shiites. Only the most desperate refugees bothered to register, so the true figures were unknown. Ninety-five percent of those registered with UNHCR were from Baghdad.
The Shiites were generally single young men, while the rest came as families. For the first two years the Syrians provided free medical care to Iraqis, but they were overwhelmed; in 2005 they ended the practice except for emergencies. Iraqis could attend Syrian public schools provided they were not too crowded, which they often were. Child labor became a problem, since parents were unable to work and children were easier to hide. Children dropped out of school as a result, and Iraqi prostitutes became extremely common. UN screeners reported seeing numerous victims of torture, detention, rape, and kidnapping among newly arrived Iraqis. Most had family members who had been killed, and many were intellectuals.
“The problems of Iraqis have not come to Syria,” said Jolles, referring to sectarianism. “The [Iraqi] refugee communities don’t integrate, and the government has good control.” But he still had his worries. “They are less manageable and understandable because they are not in camps. One million people are uprooted, and they don’t know what the future has in store for them. It’s normal to have some degree of criminality, violence, and disruption.”
According to a Western diplomat, the presence of so many Iraqis gave the Syrian government political leverage in Iraq. Nearly every Iraqi political movement was represented in Syria. Historically Syria had accepted Iraqi dissidents such as those from the left wing of the Baath Party, Dawa leaders like Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki, and even Kurdish independence parties. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan was established in a Damascus restaurant. The Syrians were still playing a complex game. They diplomatically recognized the Iraqi government but also housed members of the former regime, security forces, and Baath Party. They invited Shiite leaders such as Muqtada al-Sadr and radical Sunnis close to the resistance, such as Harith al- Dhari of the Association of Muslim Scholars. Syria saw the Iraqi civil war through the prism of Lebanon, thinking it could manage the conflict through its contacts; thus the Syrians were monitoring and cultivating everybody. But there were also dangerous contradictions in Syrian policy. Syria is a majority-Sunni country, but its close ally is Shiite Iran—which, in the eyes of Sunnis in Iraq and the region, sponsored the very militias that were persecuting Iraq’s Sunnis, who were often related to Syria’s Sunnis, especially in the border region. “The Syrian government is very capable of managing those issues,” the Western diplomat assured me, but sectarianism was at its peak in the region, and Syria, which was once a major exporter of fighters to Iraq, may face its own blowback.
“Their need is enormous,” a top official at UNHCR told me. “The temptation is there. The money from bin Laden is there. If the international community doesn’t help, then the other groups will, and all hell will break loose. Iraqis are sitting in Syria or Jordan, where the Baathists and Wahhabis are strongest. If 1 percent of the two million can be bought, then that is very dangerous. If they stay on the street you will have youth violence or terrorism. If people are in need they turn to crime or terrorism.” He mentioned the North African community of France as a model, some of whom were drawn to Islamic radicalism or terrorism out of frustration and neglect. “They come to the UN and queue at our door for five hours to get a registration card, or they can turn to radical groups for funding,” he said, explaining that the money came from Saudi Arabia to Jordan and was disbursed there. “This problem will be with us for a long time,” he added, shaking his head in frustration.
Many poor Iraqi refugees settled in the Jaramana district of Damascus. They came to the Ibrahim al-Khalil convent for assistance. The convent was the only white structure amid the graying and incomplete buildings surrounding it, many of which were so hastily thrown together that they were unpainted and lacked glass in the windows. In front of the convent I found a small bakery preparing the typical Iraqi bread known as
Sister Malaki, an elderly nun who ran the convent, expressed wonder at how quickly the neighborhood had been built since the Iraqis began showing up. Until 2006 there were no buildings around the convent, she said. It used to take her thirty minutes just to see a taxi on the street, and now she had to wait an hour to find an empty taxi. The first wave arrived in the spring of 2006, she said, but the biggest wave began in the fall of 2006. At first she saw many cases of rape, including boys and girls only ten or twelve years old. “Now it’s mostly cases of extreme poverty and people who will never go back to Iraq,” she said. “They fully reject returning to Iraq. They will die.”
She had worked in a hospital in Beirut throughout the Lebanese civil war and was seeing similar traumas. “The children have a strong fear,” she said. When asking her for something many children would threaten her, she said. “If you don’t give it to us we will tell the Americans,” she repeated with laughter. “Any nation that goes into a civil war,” she said, “the pressure makes them bitter. They ask, ‘Why us and not you?’ Today I was insulted by three different Iraqis. They feel entitled: ‘We suffered, you didn’t.’ The people who really suffer are those who had a lot—educated, university people. Now they are begging. They show me pictures of what they had.”
Um Iman worked as a cleaner in the convent. She had come with her husband and three daughters two months earlier. They were Christians and had lived in Baghdad’s Dora neighborhood. They had received four letters threatening them with death if they did not leave. One night they took a taxi to a relative’s house in Baghdad, and the next morning they joined a convoy of buses heading to the Syrian border. “There were explosions behind us and in front of us,” she said. Her husband looked for work every day but could find none. She looked defeated to me. “What can we do?” she asked with resignation. “Even if I die of hunger here I don’t want to go back to Iraq. Now there are no Christians in Baghdad.”
Lost Amid the Millions in Cairo
As Iraq fell apart its human detritus was scattered throughout the region. Lost amid the millions of Cairo, Iraqis could be found struggling with the bureaucracy in the Mugamaa, the massive labyrinthine edifice where all people’s interactions with the Egyptian state began and ended. On the first floor, in the Arab Nations section of the Visa Renewal section, past Somalis and Sudanese sitting and awaiting their turn, was a sign that said, “Booth 23 for Iraqis only.” When I visited in late February 2006 the crowds of Iraqis there exceeded the numbers at the nearby section for Palestinian refugees. Iraqis continued to enter Egypt by the planeload. They came on tourist visas at first, but extended them indefinitely or applied for temporary protection at the UNHCR, and settled into the urban sprawl of Cairo.
In the Medinat Nasr district, past the Layali Baghdad (Baghdad Nights) restaurant, I found a small Internet cafe owned by Muhamad Abu Rawan, a twenty-seven-year-old Sunni man who fled Iraq on May 15, 2006, with his wife, Lubna, also twenty-seven. Muhamad walked me to their nearby apartment, where we found Lubna watching a soap opera and holding their three-month-old daughter, Rawa. Their home was sparsely decorated: flower patterns on the sofas and carpets, pictures of a forest, a beach and a lake on the walls. Both Muhamad and Lubna were from Basra. Back in Baghdad Muhamad had worked repairing air conditioners for the same electronic appliance company where Lubna, a civil engineer, worked.
At first they both spoke Egyptian Arabic with me, because, like most Iraqis, they had quickly assimilated into Egyptian culture and had learned the dialect from the country’s famous soap operas and films. At the beginning of the American occupation, Lubna told me, “Our lives were normal, like all Iraqis. Every once in a while the Americans would besiege the area, but my father was never politically active, so the Americans never bothered us.”
