Hard Way Home part 1/6

The collapse of Iraq into sectarian violence after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein drove more than four million Iraqis from their homes. Many of the country's middle class are now refugees in Syria and Jordan. If these engineers, teachers, doctors and shop owners are not helped to survive in exile and eventually return to their homes, Iraq may never recover.

Our film follows three refugee families.

Ahlam was kidnapped in Baghdad and cannot go home. She does whatever she can to help other refugees in Syria but sees an entire future generation at risk.

Fayez has to take his family back to Baghdad because he is bankrupt, but finds a divided city where he cannot work.

Afrah is a Shia married to a Sunni; they cannot live together in Baghdad and have run out of money in Damascus. Their only hope of an income is rent from their flats in Baghdad -- but that means Afrah risking a trip back to confront the militias which confiscated them.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Iraq
• Refugees
• Syria

[Webins]

Oh I'm sure we'll get through. We didn't get by all those thousands of years, and do all the things we did, by being so easy to beat and destroy.

[calpolyis]

Let's just hope that peace will come to our countries. I promise, I will the first one to go back and help rebuilding.lol

[Webins]

Why are you asking me? I'm not the Saudi government.

If it was up to me, the Saudis would expel all foreign troops, pull of money in Western banks, and rebuild Iraq and build up the Arab world.

But it's not up to me.

[calpolyis]

Let me ask you a simple question. How come Saudi didn't take more than 50,000 Iraqis? shouldn't Saudi take more responsibilty?

[Webins]

Thirdly, remember three things: this situation isn't going ot last forever; and as bad as it is for Sryians, it's much much worse for the Iraqis; and finally, that as bad as it is for thr two of you, it's massively worse for other refugees, whther they be Palestinians, Darfurians, Congolese, Somalians, and Afghans (many of these suffering for faaar longer).

[Webins]

Well, first of all, I'm not Iraqi, I'm Saudi-Egyptian.

Second, that 12% figure isn't the fault fo the Iraqis. It's the fault of an inept and corrupt govermnent. It's high in most of the region anyhow.

[calpolyis]

When you put an additional million and half people on top of almost 4 million in Damascus alone, you are really using the info structure big time. The funny thing, the United States already placing sanctions on Syria, and it is making it harder to build more power plants and to advance it is resources. Don't you think you should blame your Iraqi government for everything instead???

[calpolyis]

How can you give work permits to refuges when you already have 12% unemployment? It is already hard as it is for a Syrian college graduates to find a jobs. That is why you see a huge population of Syrians in the Gulf area. Second, the Iraqi people are sharing water, electricity, food and everything with Syrians.

[Webins]

I understand that. But I recall reading of the Syrian government not giving working permits to these refugees. If so, then that explains the crime and the prostitution (the latter, incidentally, was in Syria before, largely from Eastern European women).

Imagine if the Syrian population itself grew (and it is ofocurse always growing) by 1-2 million, would you have trouble then?

The point is, these Iraqis seem troublesome only because they are kept outside the system and economy.

[calpolyis]

Food is very expensive. Just few years ago, we would never hear crimes or prostitution in Syria, now it is almost everywhere thanks to Iraqis. Syrians are really struggling to make a living. If the Iraqi people are not helping themselves and stop fighting, how can we help them?