I went to Amman a few weeks ago to get an update on the situation of Iraqi refugees living in Jordan.  While I was there MECC (Middle East Council of Churches), a local partner of CWS, was distributing a recent shipment of CWS kits and blankets.  One of these distributions was at St. Ephraim’s Syrian Orthodox Church in East Amman in early June.  There are about 1,000 Iraqis who attend St. Ephraim’s who have fled Iraq in the last couple years as the violence there has spiraled out of control.  I went to the distribution in order to meet some of these families.  Here are the stories of two of them.

The first family I met was a woman with her two daughters.  (She asked that I not use their names but permitted these photos of the girls.)  About three months ago the family was celebrating the 5th birthday of the older daughter in Baghdad.  There were a lot of cars parked outside on the street due to the guests.  A passing US military patrol stopped to ask what was happening inside.  When they were told it was a little girl’s birthday one of the soldiers asked to be able to meet the girl and give her a present.  The family agreed and he went inside.  Within a few days the family began receiving threats for being collaborators with the Americans.  These threats were in a context of widespread kidnappings, killings and forced expulsions in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq.  The family saw no choice but to leave Iraq.  The father made his way to Sweden where he was granted asylum.  The mother and daughters are living with an extended family member in Amman and are hoping to be granted asylum in Sweden as well.

Waadallih Malki Elias, 44, had a small contracting business in Baghdad with his cousin.  Seven months ago his cousin was kidnapped and held for ransom.  Before a ransom could be arranged the cousin was fortuitously freed during a military raid in the area in which he was being held.  Waadallih soon began receiving phone calls from the kidnappers saying they had made a mistake when they captured his cousin, intending rather to kidnap him.  He was told a ransom was required or they would come for him.  Waadallih decided the risks of staying were too great and left with his wife and two teenage daughters for Amman.  They have been in Amman for about 6 months.  They pay about $220/month rent for an apartment.  His wife has a chronic illness which requires another $100/month for medicines.  They have received a little support from St. Ephraim’s and from Caritas but are mostly on their own.  He, like nearly all Iraqis in Jordan, is not allowed to work and so has no source of income.  They would like to continue their daughter’s education, but Iraqis are rarely admitted into public schools.  Iraqis must pay for private schooling, but Waadallih can’t afford the $450/year student fee.  Waadallih estimates that they have enough money for another 6 months.  When I ask him how they will manage after that, he shrugs and says, “Only God knows.”

There are tens of thousands of Iraqi families in Jordan and Syria with similar stories and there is no foreseeable resolution to their situation.  There is little reason to think that the situation in Iraq will improve in the next 1, 2 or 3 years.  So the 2 million Iraqis living in neighboring countries will not be returning home, voluntarily, anytime soon.  Nor will they be resettled in third countries in numbers that meaningfully address the overall situation.  UNHCR hopes to resettle 20,000 Iraqis this year.  That is less than 1% of the total number of Iraqis in neighboring countries, and less than the number of Iraqis fleeing Iraq to Syria every month (30,000 according to UNHCR).  So one can only assume that large numbers of Iraqis will be staying in Jordan and Syria for the near term.  And as the resources they arrived with continue to be depleted, their situation will become increasingly difficult.