Latest news feedRefugees Magazine Issue 146 ("Iraq Bleeds: Millions displaced by conflict, persecution and violence") – Refugee testimonies: Haneen's Story
Collected by Rupert Colville
Haneen is 42 years old and spent most of her career as a secretary for various Iraqi government institutions. Her husband was a diplomat. After the US army captured Baghdad, they were both removed from their posts. Despite his past, her husband worked for three months as an interpreter and guard for the US army. They needed the money, but now they were a target for the embittered on both sides of the political and sectarian divide.
Their house was bombed, and at the end of 2003 her husband was picked up by a militia and held for seven months, along with dozens of others. In the end, he was freed when the army approached the building where he was being held, and his guards melted away.
"My husband had a heart condition," she said. "At first it was a simple problem. His medical situation got worse after the invasion and the kidnapping. He was deprived of the medicine he was supposed to take every day, and they kept him in the cold and without food for up to three days at a time."
By the time they fled to Damascus at the end of 2004, his health had deteriorated. They arrived with US$1,000. "At that time, prices hadn't risen so much, so the money lasted seven months," she said. However, by mid-2005, they were in trouble financially.
UNHCR arranged for her husband to receive medicine, but did not have sufficient funds to pay for heart surgery. "We needed about US$4,500 for the operation," said Haneen. "But UNHCR could only offer US$1,500." She understands why, and does not appear to bear a grudge against the agency, even though her husband died from his heart condition in March 2006. (Lack of funding has forced medical agencies in Jordan to practise similar triage).
Two months after his death, she and her two sons aged 8 and 6 had to move out of their tiny apartment, because she could no longer pay the rent. Now she moves from host family to host family: "I stay five days, one week. My sons are becoming aggressive towards me, because I can't buy them things and because we keep moving."
She reels off a few other family tragedies as though there is nothing very unusual about them – which, in the context of Iraq, is unfortunately very much the case: "I have one brother who was killed in June 2006. Another of my brothers was kidnapped. I don't know what has happened to him." She also has five sisters: "I don't know exactly where they are either. I've had no news for a long time."
She gets on with life as best she can. She even helps UNHCR out a bit at a refugee centre, for no salary. And from time to time, she still raises a smile.
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.