Jiro Ose

Living in shadows: Iraqi Refugees

As the violence and instability continues in Iraq and no prospect of returning home, they are running out of savings and falling into desperate situation. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that over 2 million Iraqis have fled to neighboring countries since 2003, most of them to Syria and Jordan. Because the majority of refugees over-stayed their visas and lack legal status in the country who are recognized only as "guest" not as refugees, they are in hiding with very limited economic means.

Widowed: Zahra, 38, (name has changed) lost husband in the crossfire of firefight between US troop and militia in Baghdad. She fled Baghdad to Damascus, Syria, after being forced to marry her brother in law, but she refused."My life in Iraq is finished. Someone please give back the future of my daughters," she says. She makes living working odd jobs, reading Koran for wealthy Arabs from Gulf countries on their behalf.
  
Ibrahim, his wife Adra, their two-year-old daughter Raim, and their one-year-old Salim relax at their bare and dilapidated apartment in the poor section of Amman, Jordan, November 11, 2007. Ibrahim and Adra were still newlyweds when the bloody sectarian violence in Iraq began. Ibrahim became a Sunni when he married Adra, common practice at the time. But he did not know that the conversion had become a death sentence. When he discovered that his family was on a hit list, he made a fast and painful decision to leave. The couple quickly said good-bye to their families and headed to Jordan. Since then, Adra's father and younger brother have been murdered. "I hate these words Shia and Sunni. They mean nothing to me other than the reason why innocent people are killed," Adra says.
  
Mandean (Sabian) boy, Iraqi ethnic minority, stands at his basement apartment in Eastern Amman, Jordan November 11, 2007. They are on the verge of extinction in Iraq due to ethnic violence targeting them.
     
  
Afraid of deportation, most Iraqi refugees stay indoors in densely populated Amman, Jordan.
  
Afraid of being caught for overstaying his visa, Ahmad spends most of his days indoors in small apartment in Zarqa, Jordan November 7, 2007. Not being able to return to Iraq because of the death threats he received, and having various medical problems, he is waiting and hoping to be resettled to another country.
   
Najlaa kisses a gravestone of her husband who died from a brain cancer 4 months ago at a Christian cemetery in outskirts of Amman, Jordan November 9, 2007. They are Sabian (Mandean), ethnic minority in Iraq, who are on the verge of extinction in Iraq due to the ethnic violence. Her husband and his family was waiting for the resettlement to another country for his medical treatment. Christian cemetery is the only place she can burry her husband. She has to pay extra because he has to be buried in different direction with no cross (Sabian is not Christian). They claimed that, after a Baghdad neighborhood they lived in were hit by missile with depleted uranium, its residents started suffering from brain cancer with unkonw cause.
     
  
Old Iraqi dinner on sale in Amman, Jordan.
  
In Amman, Jordan, photo of Saddam Hussein is posted in the bedroom of the young son of Ziad Aziz, son of Tariq Aziz, former Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq and a close advisor of former Saddam Hussein for decades. Tariq Aziz has been held in US since his surrender in April 2003.
  
Ahram used to live in 1200 square meter house with driver. After the fall of Saddam, she was working as interpreter for American government, but she has to flee after being kidnapped. Her family had to pay $50,000 ransom. Now she runs informal school for iraqi children in Damascus.
     
  
Three Iraqi women and a daughter share a small apartment with no heat in outskirts of Damascus, Syria, February 24, 2008. Men in their household are either kidnapped and missing or killed in Iraq.
  
In Damascus, Syria, Iraqi refugee children show palm trees and smiling girl back home.
   
Ali, 9, sells tissue on the street of Sayed Zainab, Damascus suburb December 9, 2007. Both of his parents are killed in Iraq and now he lives with his uncle. He sells tissue paper on the street to help his adopted family. Although Syrian government allows Iraqi children to attend public school, it is estimated by Unicef that the only 10 percent of Iraqi children are enrolled to school mainly because their cannot afford it, and children has to work to support their family.
     
  
Letters written by Iraqi women in Syria, address to UNHCR, UN refugee agency, pleading for resettlement in other countries. February 24, 2008.
  
A boy hold his tear at a food distribution center run by UNHCR and Syrian Red Crescent for Iraqi refugees in Damascus, Syria February 26, 2008. It is estimated that there are nearly 1.3 million Iraqi refugees in Syria, and they have now over-stayed their visa and running out of money for food and rent.
   
Brain Drain: Iraqi surgeons work for the Doctors Without Borders France operate on Iraqi patient at Red Crescent Hospital in Amman, Jordan. Doctors and many medical professionals have fled the country for the fear of killing and kidnapping.
     
  
Brain Drain: Qais Al-Sindy is a well-konw plastic artist and former college professor from Iraq, now living in self-exile in Amman, Jordan.
   
Brain Drain: Nazer is a documentary film maker from Baghdad now lives in self-exile in Damascus. He left fled Iraq after several friends were kidnapped or killed. He is dreaming of the day he could return to Baghdad and rsume his work documenting Iraq.
  
Basim Al-Shikh, editor in chielf of Addustour daily newspaper in Iraqi had to flee Baghdad and operate his newspaper from Amman after assasination attempt on his life. The newspaepr has gained the freedom to report, but has lost 5 reporters since the fall of Saddam.
     
  
Iraqi family members say good-bye to their neighbors while their belonging are loaded to a taxi bound to Baghdad in Sayed Zainab, suburb of Damascus December 9, 2007. Although they are not convinced that it is safe for them to return, they decided to go back mainly because after spending a year in Syria, they run out of their saving.
  
Iraqi refugees wait for their turn to load and get on a bus bound to Baghdad at a bus station in outskirts of Damascus Syria February 25, 2008.
  
Iraqi girls, in their teens and early 20s dance in circle on stage for companionship and sex at a club in northwest Damascus in December 2007. An increasing number of young Iraqi women and girls who fled Iraq during the turmoil are turning to prostitution in Syria. The emergence of Iraqi prostitution in Syria, especially among young girls, reflects the dire conditions of the local Iraqi refugee community. The customers are mixed with Iraqi or Syrian men and also from Persian Gulf states and Saudi Arabia.