Sunday, May 24, 2009
McClatchy Newspapers
BAGHDAD — When Dhafir Hussein left Iraq last year for Sweden, he hoped it would be for good. Sectarian killings and armed gangs had turned his old Baghdad neighborhood, Sheik Omar, into a ghost town. Business had disappeared at the small engine-repair shop where he once made a decent living.
A year after Hussein got to Stockholm, his immigration lawyer called and said that Hussein would never be allowed to settle in Sweden permanently with his wife and two teenage sons, so he decided to go home. Besides, he figured, Iraq’s government had said things were better there.
Hussein returned to Baghdad two months ago. His shop is still deserted. He said that customers were afraid to come to Sheik Omar. He’s looked for other jobs, but he hasn’t found one.
His family, now nearly broke, squats in a tiny third-floor apartment in an abandoned complex where Saddam Hussein, the late dictator, used to house his administrative staff. If the new government evicts them as it’s threatened to do, Hussein and his family will be homeless.
“We have nothing here,” he said. “At least in Sweden I could work.”
Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, an estimated 4 million Iraqis have fled their homes to escape the violence, half of them abroad. Several months ago, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki began telling them to return, assuring them that Iraq is safe.
Not everyone agrees, however, and some families who have come back said they regretted it. They face soaring rents, limited job opportunities and shortages of electricity, clean water, education and health care, not to mention the continuing threat of violence and political instability.
Al-Maliki argues that mass returns are needed to rebuild the country. Critics accuse him of politicizing the issue by encouraging refugees to return en masse to create the appearance that Iraq is safer than it is ahead of national elections, which are scheduled for the end of this year.
“Instead of finding ways to push people home, the government should be creating conditions that make people want to go back on their own,” said Kristele Younes of Refugees International, a U.S.-based advocacy organization. “Maliki has been very clear that he wants everyone home this year. One has to wonder why he’s in such a big hurry.”
The flight of Iraqis since the invasion has been called an invisible humanitarian crisis. Though the absence of sprawling camps may have made Iraqi refugees less noticeable to much of the world, their numbers are significant: Roughly a sixth of Iraqis have fled their homes since 2003.
Only a small fraction of refugees have returned so far, but it’s not for want of government effort.
On many occasions, al-Maliki has sent his official plane to retrieve willing families from abroad. After complaints that returnees were left without resources, officials recently announced that they will begin handing out at the airport the $900 in cash promised to returning families.
Safety looms as perhaps the biggest issue that’s blocking mass returns.
Though violence remains lower than it was in 2007, large-scale bombings targeting civilians have been on the rise since March. By several measures, last month was the bloodiest that Iraq has seen in the past year.
“Maybe it’s a little safer, but what about services?” asked Muthhir Mohammad, a 35-year-old security guard who returned from Syria with his wife and baby in 2007. “We have maybe a few hours of electricity a day. How can the government say things are OK?”