The Resettlement Lottery

Last week was both busy and tough, and I have fallen behind somewhat in my writing. Habib and I met with more than twenty families. I’m just going to share two of their stories.

Wednesday morning we drove to a place in Amman where many Iraqi Christians live. It’s actually a part of the city I love, a narrow quiet street on the edge of a hill with a sweeping view. We met with two Iraqi Christian sisters who fled Iraq in 2002. Their uncle, his wife, and seven children were killed in Hussein’s Anfal campaign. The entire family was placed under travel restriction and interrogated by the muhabarat.

Now, most of the family has been successfully resettled in various countries. They have a mother and brother in Germany, aunts in the US, other family in other parts of the world. These two sisters are the only ones still trapped in Amman.

They do not understand why they are still here. Neither is permitted to work, and they rely on the charity of their relatives abroad to survive. Rents have gone up in Amman with the arrival of new refugees. Going back to Iraq was never a good option for them- even in 2003 and 2004. In addition to the danger, they no longer had family there. The younger sister had supported the two of them with a hairdressing business, and it was confiscated by the regime.

Like most people we meet, they presented us with a file of rumpled papers. Photos of the seven children who had been killed. Their asylum-seeker letters from the UNHCR, which they faithfully renewed every five months, for the past five years.

One of the women was in tears through most of the interview. The other was stoic but her eyes looked hurt. She had applied for a visa to Australia six times. There was basically nothing helpful I could do. I told them honestly that UNHCR was only going to be able to resettle 20,000 people this year (if that) from Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon and that many people in need would be left behind.

Next, we drove to a store in an upscale neighborhood, where an Iraqi man told us the following story:

I was working in the Ministry of Industry and Minerals. One of my colleagues
asked me why I had named my daughter Aisha. It’s a Sunni name. We got into a
fight over this. Two days later, Iraqi police came to my house, accompanied by
two men wearing black masks. They took my brothers and I to the seventh floor of
the ministry of interior. They tortured us for two months. We were shocked with
electricity. Eventually, we were moved to the headquarters of the ministry’s
special forces. They held us there for four months. The beating and torture
continued. Although an American committee inspected the prison, we were
prevented from speaking to them. Eventually we were transferred again. I was
supposed to go before the court. One of the lawyers told my father they would
need some money in order to get me released. My father had to pay them $21,000
US in cash.

After my release, I left my home. I tried to go back to
work. After a few days, I was followed by a car and shot at. Eventually, we fled
to Jordan. That was in July 2006. They let my wife, child and I come across the
border. But my wife’s brother was turned back, and he was killed. He was 26
years old.

In the middle of the story, someone walked into the store. Habib and I stashed our notebooks and pretended to be customers. He picked out a farm animal set for some kids we know, and I checked out Fulla, the Arabic Barbie.

This man’s story, amazingly enough, might have a good end. He, his wife, and their young daughter have been offered resettlement in the United States.