Latest news feedRefugees Magazine Issue 146 ("Iraq Bleeds: Millions displaced by conflict, persecution and violence") – Refugee testimonies: Nada
Collected by Rupert Colville
"People are being killed because of their identity card. If I'm stopped at a checkpoint in Baghdad, the name Nada doesn't reveal that I am Shia. But the card shows my father's name and that is clearly Shia, so at some checkpoints I would be killed.
"One week ago, some young [Shia] men here... the police came to their apartment. They took them to a police station. Then they took them to the border with Iraq. There are drivers on the other side of the border. The young men spoke to a driver and told him they didn't have any money and asked him to take them to Baghdad. We think that the driver is getting paid US$100 for each Shia that he delivers to the terrorist groups. Six of them were beheaded. One of those men was my cousin."
"Here in Jordan, the Iraqis stick together – whether Sunni, Shia, Christian. But in Iraq, they are killing each other."
After talking for half an hour, mainly about her difficult life in Jordan, Nada suddenly breaks down. Her friends try to console her, and after she has nodded her permission, tell the rest of her story on her behalf: her husband was kidnapped in Kirkuk in November 2006. There has been no news of him since. She has five children – the eldest, a daughter, is 19; the youngest, also a daughter, is eight.
The children do not know that their father has been kidnapped – and do not understand why he is failing to telephone. She tells them he is travelling, but after three months the story is wearing thin.
Nada's two sons, aged 17 and 15, both work illegally in a shoe factory in Jordan after school. The family lives off their income. "Basically, my children are all that I have left," she says, wiping away the tears. "My oldest son is determined to go to Iraq to find him, though he doesn't know he has been kidnapped. I'm worried about my son – he's started smoking and his friends want to take him out to a night club. I worry that if he starts smoking, going to clubs and drinking alcohol, I'll lose control and my younger son will follow suit. Then the money will be spent and the family will fall apart."
Source: Refugees Magazine Issue 146: "Iraq Bleeds: Millions displaced by conflict, persecution and violence" (April 2007). Download the complete issue in pdf format: low-resolution (1.27 Mb) here or high-resolution (4.25 Mb) here.