When Collateral Repair Project visits Iraqi refugee families, we always take gifts for the children. This is Fatima, one of Um and Abu Noor's four daughters. Um Noor was the recent recipient of a Micro-Project: an automatic washing machine to replace her old and falling apart semi-manual one. Um Noor takes in laundry to help support her family. As soon as Fatima put on her fairy wings with lights inside, she began to dance and sing!
Showing posts with label Iraqi refugees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraqi refugees. Show all posts
Friday, April 23, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
Letter from Amman
“Collateral Damage” (a euphemism if ever there was one) doesn’t stop with the coalition’s last bomb, the draw-down of US troops or the so-called open elections in Iraq. It keeps on “giving” to its victims.
This week we witnessed the on-going effects when we visited three Iraqi refugee families struggling to cope with its damage in Amman, Jordan. Their days are filled with a constant search for affordable housing, medical treatment and just about anything needed to eke out a bare existence.
They invariably show us their thick but orderly files of papers, documents and medical reports from various government and Non-governmental agencies and medical providers they have visited, often many times, in fruitless attempts to get help as they are shuttled back and forth from one agency to another. When the power bill jumps from $28 a month to nearly $200, they, as refugees, have no recourse to complain or even ask for an explanation. When their UNHCR cash assistance is inexplicably stopped or delayed they must wait for bureaucracy to wend its slow, interminable path to ferret out the reason and, hopefully, when resumed, include missed payments.
Meanwhile the rent goes unpaid, the tab at the local grocery accumulates until it’s finally cut-off and the refrigerator and cupboards display bare shelves. Prescriptions for medications for diabetes, high-blood pressure (rampant among Iraqi refugees) go unfilled, there's no money to buy fuel to keep drafty homes warm; children go without meals.
One man tell us of his “heart clot” and his sky-rocketing electric bill. He pulls his medical report out of his file that delineates all the symptoms of PTSD: depression -- feelings of worthlessness, anger, panic attacks, insomnia. His sister shows us her prescription for an anti-depressant.
A widow and her seven children have gone all day, well into the late evening, without food because their cash assistance stopped, due to a bureaucratic glitch when she recently moved to more affordable housing. The house is cold, there is no water heater, no washing machine for the family of 8. She washes all clothes by hand but it is painful due to shrapnel left in her hands and arm from an American bomb on their house in Iraq. This bomb killed her 8 month old baby and the twin of one of her surviving children. The large shard of shrapnel in her left arm is a constant reminder of that tragic loss.
A pregnant Iraqi woman, facing an up-coming caesarian birth that will cost close to $2,000, is declined help from agency after agency, because she is married to a Palestinian. Her husband is refused help because he is married to an Iraqi. ” Their three children, one with Down’s Syndrome, do not qualify for UNHCR cash assistance because they are legally considered Palestinian. She and all three children have been diagnosed with calcium and vitamin deficiency. They survive on what her husband can earn part-time as a fill-in taxi driver and her cash assistance of $106 a month. When she appeals for help she is told “just thank God you receive anything. If you complain, you will lose even that.”
Similar stories are told time and after. Every agency, from UNHCR to Collateral Repair Project, from highest realms of officialdom to grassroots, suffers from dwindling funds while needs snowball into an avalanche. With the slogging on of the global economic crisis and public attention focused on Afghanistan and the disaster in Haiti, Iraqi refugees continue to cope with damages that have been all but forgotten.
Daily we are forced to make heart-breaking decisions as we listen to families detail a litany of needs, invariably for their children. Emergency Assistance and Milk for Kids has supplanted out Micro-projects, because of both funding cut-backs and because this is where the needs are most urgent.
Our work is a pittance in comparison to the overwhelming needs, but that makes it all the more vital as collateral damage keeps on taking from its unseen, unheard victims.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Children Without Much Hope for a Future
We were invited to visit a family of 6 living in Al Joffa neighborhood of Amman – a very impoverished area with many Iraqis. They live in a simple 3 room house – living room, a 
bedroom shared by the entire family of 6, and a kitchen area. Before they moved in to this home, it was a barn housing livestock. Despite their poverty, they were very generously warm in their hospitality – like all other Iraqis I have met, sharing a lovely meal with us.
and the youngest, Mohammed, age 4.
The eldest two children are from Thukra’s first marriage. The eldest, Mustafa, is a quiet boy, gentle and polite; a sparse, newly acquired mustache adorns his upper lip. Sara has a sweet roundmoon face, framed by thick wavy hair.
bedroom shared by the entire family of 6, and a kitchen area. Before they moved in to this home, it was a barn housing livestock. Despite their poverty, they were very generously warm in their hospitality – like all other Iraqis I have met, sharing a lovely meal with us.This family consists of Nadia, her daughter, Thukra. Thukra’s husband, Ali and their three children: Mustafa (age 15),
Sara (age 10)
and the youngest, Mohammed, age 4.The eldest two children are from Thukra’s first marriage. The eldest, Mustafa, is a quiet boy, gentle and polite; a sparse, newly acquired mustache adorns his upper lip. Sara has a sweet roundmoon face, framed by thick wavy hair.
Thikra was married in Baghdad to a Palestinian who came to Iraq in 1989 from Egypt. They married in 1992. They divorced but he visited his children often. In 2003, Thukra’s husband disappeared and she worried that he had been executed by militia.
In June 2004, three masked men forced their way into Thukra’s home and threatened Thukra, hitting her, shoving her to the ground, and giving her two days to leave Baghdad or she and her children would be killed. Why? Because the two older children are considered “Palestinian” because of their father’s nationality, even though they were born in Iraq.
Even before the invasion, many Iraqis resented Palestinians because Saddam gave them many benefits that Iraqi citizens were deprived of. After the invasion, Palestinians in Iraq who previously had enjoyed the special protection and privileges under the sovereign government of Iraq, were harassed and persecuted by militias because, when the US invaded and rendered the police and military useless, the rule of law was destroyed. Resentments could be acted on with impunity. Gangs formed with many agendas. Palestinians and their offspring were only some of those targeted. To this day, Palestinians in Iraq are not safe.
After being threatened, Thukra took her family and stayed the night at the home of a neighbor. Early the next morning, she went to her aunt and uncle’s house. Thukra’s mother, Nadia, sent them money so that Thukra’s uncle could bribe an official to get passports quickly. They fled to Jordan within a few days.
On entering Jordan, Thukra was given a 3 month visa while her two children were only given transit visas for 72 hours (a transit visa allows one to enter a country for a short period of time on their way to go to another country) because they only had their documents showing their father was a Palestinian from Egypt. Even though the children had never lived in Egypt, they have a form of residency permit for Egypt because of their father’s status there. The reason they were given a transit visa instead of a temporary one is because Jordan does not make it easy for Palestinians to enter. Since the children have these Egyptian papers, they are expected to reside in Egypt.
Although Palestinians are 80% of the population of Jordan – or perhaps because they are the majority of the population of this resource and water-deprived country are Palestinian refugees – Jordan controls entry to those who may want to settle here and put more strain on its limited resources. Usually, Palestinians in transit are held at the border until they can complete their travels to the third country but, because these are minor children, accompanied by their Iraqi mother, they were allowed to enter with her. Technically, they have been in Jordan illegally beginning three days after their entry here.
Thukra and her family moved in with her mother, Nadia. Nadia – a registered nurse – came to Jordan in the 1990s on a 6 month visa because, at that time, Iraq was under the brutal sanctions that devastated its economy – along with killing over 500,000 of its children. Nadia worked as a private nurse in Jordan on her temporary visa in order to send money t o support her family left behind in Iraq.
Later, in 2006, Thukra found out that her husband had actually fled from the threats in Iraq back to Egypt because he had distant relatives there. It is assumed that he had not gotten in contact with her or the kids because he feared that his life would not be safe in Egypt either. Thukra was informed that he had died of a heart condition a short time after he arrived in Egypt. She then traveled to Egypt to obtain custody papers – granting her custody of her own children! Jordanian authorities insisted that first, before Thukra could have custody, any relative of her former husband should take custody. Luckily for Thukra, Mustafa and Sara, there were no living relatives in her ex-husband’s immediate family remaining in Egypt and she was granted custody.
In 2004, Thukra remarried an Iraqi man, Ali – a friend of her family from Baghdad. Ali received death threats because American service members visited the musical instrument shop he owned. He was also threatened, by sectarian militia, accused of being a “flute for Saddam” because he his father was the only news commentator to accompany Saddam on his trip to Mecca – meaning that Saddam trusted him very much. Also, in the lead-up to the US invasion, his reports had given the government’s slant. When he ignored these threats, he was gunned down one day as he crossed the road in front of his shop. Lucky for Ali, his assailant was a poor sh
ot and he only received a bullet to his leg. He got the message loud and clear though. He rushed from Iraq, leaving the hospital before he’d recovered because it is common for militia to enter hospitals to finish off any botched jobs and assassinate victims helpless to escape while ill or injured.
Thukra and Ali now have a young son together, Mohammed.
life has not been easy for them. Of course, they have over-stayed their visas because they cannot return to the threats that remain in Iraq and because no other country will accept them. This has had even more devastating effect on Mustafa and Sara than on other Iraqi refugee children. Because of their paternal “nationality” they cannot get UNHCR registration for Mustafa and Sara – this prevents them from receiving the small monthly cash grant given by UNHCR for Iraqi refugees. And, even more devastating for this family, these two children are not allowed to attend school.
Thukra approached many schools – both public and private – begging that her children be allowed to attend. She has been denied by all but one private school. The headmaster, for a hefty fee that this family cannot afford, “does them the favor” of allowing the two kids to audit classes. They attend class like all other students, take tests, but are not given any record of their attendance or grades. Thukra scrapes these fees together, the family doing without, because she knows that without an education – even one that is unrecorded – they will have no future.
But, if they stay in Jordan, these two children will have no opportunities and be forced to live in the shadows more so than other Iraqi children. All Iraqi refugees without legal residency status cannot work legally. Those with formal education and skilled professions cannot work here. But, at least now Iraqi children are allowed to attend school and have recorded grades so that they will be prepared to continue their educations and to have careers if they are resettled in a third country or if Iraq becomes safe enough for an eventual return.
Mustafa and Sara’s futures are bleak – as Iraqis, their country will not accept them, as “Palestinians” in Jordan, they are not only non-residents here but they are also” non-persons” for no crime other than having a father of Palestinian descent. Their only hope for any kind of a future is if they are resettled in another country.
Only a very small percentage of Iraqis are selected to immigrate of the two and a half million displaced in Jordan, Syria and internally displaced inside Iraq. This family’s chances of resettlement are very slim.
Mustafa and Sara’s old passports from Iraq now have CANCELED stamped over their photos in it. It is hard for me to look into their bright eyes and to imagine that the light in them may eventually be dimmed as more and more doors slam shut in their faces, their right to full lives canceled at such a young age.
In June 2004, three masked men forced their way into Thukra’s home and threatened Thukra, hitting her, shoving her to the ground, and giving her two days to leave Baghdad or she and her children would be killed. Why? Because the two older children are considered “Palestinian” because of their father’s nationality, even though they were born in Iraq.
Even before the invasion, many Iraqis resented Palestinians because Saddam gave them many benefits that Iraqi citizens were deprived of. After the invasion, Palestinians in Iraq who previously had enjoyed the special protection and privileges under the sovereign government of Iraq, were harassed and persecuted by militias because, when the US invaded and rendered the police and military useless, the rule of law was destroyed. Resentments could be acted on with impunity. Gangs formed with many agendas. Palestinians and their offspring were only some of those targeted. To this day, Palestinians in Iraq are not safe.
After being threatened, Thukra took her family and stayed the night at the home of a neighbor. Early the next morning, she went to her aunt and uncle’s house. Thukra’s mother, Nadia, sent them money so that Thukra’s uncle could bribe an official to get passports quickly. They fled to Jordan within a few days.
On entering Jordan, Thukra was given a 3 month visa while her two children were only given transit visas for 72 hours (a transit visa allows one to enter a country for a short period of time on their way to go to another country) because they only had their documents showing their father was a Palestinian from Egypt. Even though the children had never lived in Egypt, they have a form of residency permit for Egypt because of their father’s status there. The reason they were given a transit visa instead of a temporary one is because Jordan does not make it easy for Palestinians to enter. Since the children have these Egyptian papers, they are expected to reside in Egypt.
Although Palestinians are 80% of the population of Jordan – or perhaps because they are the majority of the population of this resource and water-deprived country are Palestinian refugees – Jordan controls entry to those who may want to settle here and put more strain on its limited resources. Usually, Palestinians in transit are held at the border until they can complete their travels to the third country but, because these are minor children, accompanied by their Iraqi mother, they were allowed to enter with her. Technically, they have been in Jordan illegally beginning three days after their entry here.
Thukra and her family moved in with her mother, Nadia. Nadia – a registered nurse – came to Jordan in the 1990s on a 6 month visa because, at that time, Iraq was under the brutal sanctions that devastated its economy – along with killing over 500,000 of its children. Nadia worked as a private nurse in Jordan on her temporary visa in order to send money t o support her family left behind in Iraq.
Later, in 2006, Thukra found out that her husband had actually fled from the threats in Iraq back to Egypt because he had distant relatives there. It is assumed that he had not gotten in contact with her or the kids because he feared that his life would not be safe in Egypt either. Thukra was informed that he had died of a heart condition a short time after he arrived in Egypt. She then traveled to Egypt to obtain custody papers – granting her custody of her own children! Jordanian authorities insisted that first, before Thukra could have custody, any relative of her former husband should take custody. Luckily for Thukra, Mustafa and Sara, there were no living relatives in her ex-husband’s immediate family remaining in Egypt and she was granted custody.
In 2004, Thukra remarried an Iraqi man, Ali – a friend of her family from Baghdad. Ali received death threats because American service members visited the musical instrument shop he owned. He was also threatened, by sectarian militia, accused of being a “flute for Saddam” because he his father was the only news commentator to accompany Saddam on his trip to Mecca – meaning that Saddam trusted him very much. Also, in the lead-up to the US invasion, his reports had given the government’s slant. When he ignored these threats, he was gunned down one day as he crossed the road in front of his shop. Lucky for Ali, his assailant was a poor sh
ot and he only received a bullet to his leg. He got the message loud and clear though. He rushed from Iraq, leaving the hospital before he’d recovered because it is common for militia to enter hospitals to finish off any botched jobs and assassinate victims helpless to escape while ill or injured.Thukra and Ali now have a young son together, Mohammed.
life has not been easy for them. Of course, they have over-stayed their visas because they cannot return to the threats that remain in Iraq and because no other country will accept them. This has had even more devastating effect on Mustafa and Sara than on other Iraqi refugee children. Because of their paternal “nationality” they cannot get UNHCR registration for Mustafa and Sara – this prevents them from receiving the small monthly cash grant given by UNHCR for Iraqi refugees. And, even more devastating for this family, these two children are not allowed to attend school.
Thukra approached many schools – both public and private – begging that her children be allowed to attend. She has been denied by all but one private school. The headmaster, for a hefty fee that this family cannot afford, “does them the favor” of allowing the two kids to audit classes. They attend class like all other students, take tests, but are not given any record of their attendance or grades. Thukra scrapes these fees together, the family doing without, because she knows that without an education – even one that is unrecorded – they will have no future.
But, if they stay in Jordan, these two children will have no opportunities and be forced to live in the shadows more so than other Iraqi children. All Iraqi refugees without legal residency status cannot work legally. Those with formal education and skilled professions cannot work here. But, at least now Iraqi children are allowed to attend school and have recorded grades so that they will be prepared to continue their educations and to have careers if they are resettled in a third country or if Iraq becomes safe enough for an eventual return.
Mustafa and Sara’s futures are bleak – as Iraqis, their country will not accept them, as “Palestinians” in Jordan, they are not only non-residents here but they are also” non-persons” for no crime other than having a father of Palestinian descent. Their only hope for any kind of a future is if they are resettled in another country.
Only a very small percentage of Iraqis are selected to immigrate of the two and a half million displaced in Jordan, Syria and internally displaced inside Iraq. This family’s chances of resettlement are very slim.
Mustafa and Sara’s old passports from Iraq now have CANCELED stamped over their photos in it. It is hard for me to look into their bright eyes and to imagine that the light in them may eventually be dimmed as more and more doors slam shut in their faces, their right to full lives canceled at such a young age.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Sometimes Hope is Not Enough
%5B1%5D.JPG)
Roof top view from Fatima's tiny apartmentFatima's was one of six households we visited in the last two days and, although each family's story was wrenching, each of the others have hope that their circumstances will improve and that a better life will be possible again. We could offer temporary assistance to them with micro-projects; they could look forward to eventually being accepted for immigration to a third country or imagine a future when a truly stable Iraq will welcome them home. Fatima's sorrows will not be that easy to sooth.
Fatima welcomed us into her dreary apartment and then ran downstairs to bring us cans of cold soda with typical Iraqi hospitality. She could not bring them cold from her refridgerator as it does not work and her landlord ignores her pleas to repair it. He knows that, as an Iraqi without legal residency, she cannot complain and has no legal recourse. He charges her an exhorbenant rent and made her pay a year in advance so now she cannot afford to move. The apartment came "furnished" with a few pieces of shabby furniture. Despite its dreariness, Fatima keeps a tidy house.
When she returned, she told us her story:
She has only one child - a daughter, Haneen, who is almost 16. Fatima is married but is assumed to be a widow. In 2006 Fatima's husband went out to get gas for their car and never returned. Fatima searched the hospitals, jails and morgues but it was as if he had disappeared. He was never heard from again and is assumed dead. Soon after her father's disappearance, then 14 year old Haneem began to have fainting spells. Her mother and doctors attributed this to the trauma of losing her father. But when her neck became severely swollen and the fainting spells increased in frequency, Fatima took her to a hospital in Baghdad for tests and had one tumor removed from her neck. Tests on it came back negative. Then the symptoms increased in severity and she had another series of tests at another hospital and was told that there had been an error made with the first tests and that Haneem has cancer. The doctors told Fatima that she must get Haneem out of the country for treatment as Iraq's hospital system is in shambles, incapable of providing adequate care. Terrified for her daughter, Fatima spirited her out of Iraq and within 2 days, they were in Amman.
Haneem was diagnosed in Amman with Hodgekins lymphoma.
Haneem was not there when we visited but she smiled widely from the studio
portrait that sits on top of their old television set.
%5B1%5D.JPG)
Mother and daughter photo in happier timesShe is recovering from her last 9 week round of chemo-therapy and too weak to climb the stairs to their apartment so she is staying temporarily with relatives in another part of Jordan. Fatima seems lost without her. We wonder if she will ever be able to return home as it is not only weakness that keeps her from reaching their home but her bones, brittle from long-term cordizone treatment and they break under moderate stress. Also one of her knees is swollen to over twice its normal size. We do not ask about this as sometimes there is already so much pain in what is told that it is kinder to leave some things unasked.
Before leaving Iraq, Fatima had collected thousands of dollars from friends and relatives for Haneem's care but the past year of treatments, tests and medications have exhausted these funds; there is nothing left; her former benefactors tell her that they have no more money to give her. There is no free cancer care for non-resident Iraqis in Jordan except for through the King Hussein Cancer Foundation's Iraqi Goodwill Fund. This fund is inadequate to cover but a few patients at a time and according to the information on their web site, there's a waiting list.
It is almost impossible for me to comprehend this -- that children are allowed to die because their parents have no money and they lack a piece of paper. The costs are astronomical - Haneem's past surgeries have left Fatima with a bill of over 30,000 Jordanian dinar ($43,000) She needs a battery of tests in a couple of weeks to assess the effectiveness of this last round of chemotherapy which will cost over 3000 JD; the monthly cost of her medications are over $1000. The chemotherapy alone is over $1000 per 9 week run of treatment.
We have no answers for her.
Haneem is despondant. Fatima said that her daughter has threatened to return to Iraq if they are not granted asylum within 2 months. She told her mother that then she could, at least, die "at home".
We know Fatima had hoped we would be able to offer her a solution. It feels ridiculous to be approached with a life and death dilemna and to respond with an offer of a micro-project. It is infuriating to know that saving her child's life is possible but that it is beyond our means.
I could not help but think of the trillions of dollars that are poured into the destruction of Iraq while children are dying from lack of medical care and families live in desititution. I cannot find the words to express my feelings. All I know is that this is, on a very basic and simple level, terribly terribly wrong.
We sat together and wept together, the five of us - not as "Iraqis" and "Americans" - but as five women who understand that every child is a precious gift to be cherished and protected. Our grief was not for just this one child whose life has a cost too high for us to pay, but for all of the children who are being sacrificed for the profit of a very few.
Fatima has decided that she would like to have salon supplies so that she can visit women in their homes to provide them with beauty treatments as she cannot expect them to climb to the top of her building.
We leave drained and promise to "do what we can". It feels like an empty promise and we are caught in the dilemna of whether offering her a thread of
hope is a kindness or cruelty. Is false hope better than no hope at all?
%5B1%5D.JPG)
We will soon have nine other stories on our web site of Iraqi refugees that need micro-projects, including Fatima's.
in peace & action,
Sasha
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Dear Friends of Collateral Repair Project
CRP co-directors, Sasha and Mary, will be blogging from the Middle East beginning August 5. We'll be there and writing to you from this blog for the next 3 months! We are thrilled to return and to once again be working directly with our wonderful and dedicated Amman Team members: Maha, Sanaa, Manal and Salwan.
We will visit many more Iraqi refugees in Amman and share their stories and photos with you here as well as giving you a closer look at the challenges they face while living in exile.
We'll also visit all of the past recipients of our micro-projects that you have funded to see how they are doing so that we can assess how well this project is improving their lives. We'll share the updates on these families you are already familiar with you here also.
We are excited to tell you that we will also be visiting Damascus, Syria during our time in the ME as we hope to expand our project to assist Iraqis there.
Please consider subscribing to this blog as it will be replacing our usual UPDATE while we are in the ME.
In peace & action - and always grateful for your support,
Sasha Crow & Mary Madsen - CRP co-directors
We will visit many more Iraqi refugees in Amman and share their stories and photos with you here as well as giving you a closer look at the challenges they face while living in exile.
We'll also visit all of the past recipients of our micro-projects that you have funded to see how they are doing so that we can assess how well this project is improving their lives. We'll share the updates on these families you are already familiar with you here also.
We are excited to tell you that we will also be visiting Damascus, Syria during our time in the ME as we hope to expand our project to assist Iraqis there.
Please consider subscribing to this blog as it will be replacing our usual UPDATE while we are in the ME.
In peace & action - and always grateful for your support,
Sasha Crow & Mary Madsen - CRP co-directors
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
