Spent the day today with Iraqi refugees in the Zeatrieh community of Beirut. It’s become something of a “Little Baghdad,” home to a few hundred Iraqi families. Those in Zeatrieh are mostly Christians, and many are from the northern city of Mosul. Last summer the Bishop there was assassinated, and a major up tick in violence and threats against Christians followed, forcing many to flee. Like refugees everywhere, those living in Beirut are struggling. Most entered the country legally, acquiring visas that allowed them to enter as tourists, but then overstaying those visas. Living now as illegals, they cannot work, or access many public services. They are subject to arrest. And while the Migrant Detention Center, underneath an overpass in central Beirut, houses more than 400 refugees as of today, the Lebanese government is also willing to turn a blind eye, to some extent, to the estimated 25,000 – 50,000 Iraqi’s now living here. If they have registered with the United Nations upon arrival, most are destined ultimately for third countries. I met women yesterday who will soon be moving to San Diego, Chicago – and Detroit. Others are heading to Scandinavia, and some to Australia.
Here in Beirut they are living just to make it to that day. Most live with relatives or friends when they first arrive, and eventually find their way to tiny, cramped apartments, fearful of arrest and watching whatever savings they have disappear with each passing month. The families I met today carry deeper scars from Iraq – one man had his 2-year-old daughter kidnapped, and never returned. Another family sold their house to mortgage a ransom demand for a relative also kidnapped – the money was delivered, but he was never seen again.
One family I met had a copy of the last threat they received with them. It had been slipped under the door of their house – a threat against Christians calling them “traitors” and claiming they “sold Iraq,” and that they should leave or be killed. They left.
One thing that struck me most was just how many are being resettled in the United States. For people everywhere, despite the damage caused to our international image over the last eight years, still dream of America. But I wondered how those heading here from Iraq felt about moving to the country that brought about this upheaval. Christians under Saddam, while not warmly welcomed into society, were also not persecuted. When I posed that question to those I met today I got interesting answers. Most said they were happy to go anywhere there was stability – the most common refrain I heard all day. But when I posed the question to the family who’d been threatened with the note, the oldest brother in the family spoke up. He said the problems in Iraq today are not the cause of the Americans. They are simply a struggle for power, he said, a struggle unrelated to the events of the US invasion. He said some people in Iraq had turned into “savages.” When I asked him how long it would take for Iraq to be stable, he laughed a bit, and offered a timeline. “One hundred years,” he said.
February 17th, 2009 | by David in Travel
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All Material © 2008 David Snyder
