As conditions in Iraq deteriorate, Iraqis are seeking asylum in the neighboring countries of Joran, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon. It is rapidly becoming one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world. Marianne Barisonek and Linda Wiener traveled to Amman Jordan to interview some of the refugees. This is the first in a series.

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Amel wears big sunglasses with rhinestones when she goes outside. Her hair sports remnants of blonde streaks from a time when she could spend money on things like that. She has pictures from her singing career and still has the flute she played in the national orchestra. Her face is haggard. The dark circles under her eyes are almost as dark as her brown eyes.

            We can’t take our coats off in the room where she lives because it is so cold. Outside the wind blows and sends freezing drafts into her room. There is one ancient electric burner sitting on an empty can that she uses for both heating and cooking. She pulls up her pj top to show us the wounds from her recent surgery. Scotch tape holds the cotton balls onto her skin. She says that it hurts inside and she’s afraid it’s infected but she can’t go back to the doctor because she has no money.

            During the Saddam regime she was part of a national choir that would travel around Iraq and sing about things like the victory over Iran in the 80’s and what a swell leader Saddam was. They also performed traditional Iraqi songs. This wasn’t steady work. Periodically she’d get a letter summoning her to perform in this choir. She never refused because she was pretty sure that if she did, she’d land in prison.

Her main job was teaching music and designing sets for children’s theater and the ballet. Her husband was an architect and they had a comfortable apartment in a good area of Baghdad. But she didn’t want to just stay at home. She liked to work and she knew it was important to have marketable skills. She didn’t expect anyone to take care of her.

They didn’t flee when the American’s arrived in 2003. She thought that life might improve. Even though both she and her husband had worked for Saddam, they weren’t fans of the regime. They hoped that the American’s would bring real freedom.

They endured the bombings like everyone else. Even in Baghdad, electricity and water have been available only sporadically since the first Gulf war. It only got worse after the second invasion and occupation. But, still, she thought that eventually life would improve.

Then the threats started. Men armed with Kalashnikov rifles drove around her neighborhood. They wore black clothes and covered their faces with black ski masks. No one knew if they were Badr Brigade or Medhi Militia but they certainly belonged to one of the two groups. They noted where the doctors, lawyers, journalists and architects lived. All of these professionals were given letters telling them to leave – or else. Amel’s husband got one of these letters. Amel thinks that they found his name and address in papers at Saddam’s castle because he’d done work for the Saddam regime. But Amel and her husband didn’t have anywhere to go so they hunkered down and hoped it would all go away.

About a week after the threatening letters arrived, an armed militia formed a cordon around their neighborhood. People inside couldn’t escape and there was no hope of help coming from the outside. The targets were dragged out of their houses at gun point. The men came for Amel’s husband. She ran out to the street but couldn’t get near him. All she could do was watch helplessly as they gunned down their hostages one by one. Amel saw her husband shot in the head and then in the chest. His blood flowed down the street. They cut up his body. When they were done, they left with the pieces.

Weeks later, she got a call asking her to come to the morgue. Several bodies had been found and they thought her husband might be one of them. She was terrified of going outside. The militias were still active. But she had to go.

The smell inside the morgue was overpowering. The bodies were black, as if they had been burned or painted with black paint. She couldn’t recognize any of the faces. They were too far gone. Then she noticed a hand with long, slender fingers and she knew without a doubt that she’d found her husband’s body. She was told to leave and not speak to anyone about her husband’s death.

She walked out into the sunlight feeling as if she’d escaped her own death. Her husband was gone but she was still alive. She knew she’d find a way to survive. She had skills. She could find work. She would make her way alone.

Amel doesn’t know if the men who killed her husband were part of the Medhi Army or the Badr Brigade. It could have been either group. Both of them are Shiite fundamentalists and hated the secular Saddam regime.

The Badr Brigade is made up of Iraqi’s but they fought against their own country and for Iran during the Iran/Iraq war. They wanted to spread the Islamic revolution started by the Ayatollah Khomeini. The Badr Brigade was funded and trained in Iran by the same people who screamed “Death to America” while they held American Embassy personnel hostage in the 1970’s. The also founded the Al Da’wa political party which was put on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations in the 1980’s.

During the Saddam regime The Badr Brigade was exiled in Iran. When the Americans rolled into Iraq, the borders were left wide open, unguarded. This was just the sort of opening that the Badr fighters had been waiting for. They poured over the border and into all parts of Iraq. They had old scores to settle. Anyone who fought with Saddam during the Iran/Iraq war or who worked – in any capacity whatsoever – in the Saddam regime was a potential target. So were women who wouldn’t wear a veil.

The Medhi Army is another Shiite militia. It was formed after the overthrow of the Saddam regime. The men who formed this army also had a hand in forming the Al Da’wa Party but in addition to opposing the Sunni’s, the Americans and anyone associated with Saddam, they also oppose the Badr Brigade.

People like Amel and her husband get caught in the crossfire and the Americans either won’t or can’t stop these militias. In fact, despite the fact that the Badr Brigade is known to be behind kidnappings and murders all over Baghdad, the American-supported government appointed a high-ranking Badr official, Bayan Jabr, to the Interior Department in Iraq. The Interior Department in Iraq is like the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security rolled into one.

After Jabr’s appointment, the roving gangs of kidnappers and murderers changed their look. Instead of being dressed all in black, they wore police uniforms. They also carried police-issued guns and drove around in police cars. But Jabr denied these men were real police officers. He also denied knowing about the torture center found on the 6th floor of the Interior Ministry building.

But Jabr isn’t the only militia connected minister in the US supported government. Former Health Minister Abdul Mutalib Mohammed Ali and former Transportation Minister Salaam al-Maliki—are both closely linked to the Medhi Army. The US appointed Prime Minister of Iraq, Nuri Al_Maliki, belongs to the Al Da’wa party, the same party declared a terrorist organization by the State Department in the 1980’s. So it seems that instead of bringing peace and stability to Iraq, the American led forces paved the way for theocratic terrorists to enter the country and then appointed them to the government. That may seem like an extreme statement but it’s difficult to come to any other conclusion when you look at the pedigree of the groups that make up the current Iraqi government.

After her husband’s murder, Amel was summoned to perform in the National Chorus once again. This time, the command to perform didn’t come from Saddam. It came from contractors working with the Americans. As part of an attempt to show the world that Iraq was functioning once again, the Americans wanted Amel to sing the praises of the newly liberated Iraq and its American supported regime.

She says that even though the contractor received about $1,000 to hire her, she was paid only about $50. But she was in no position to bargain. Once again, she felt that if she refused, she would be imprisoned or worse. The same people she performed for during the Saddam regime were now hiring her to perform for the Americans. The cast of characters hadn’t changed, just who signed the checks. So she sang for Paul Bremer and other Americans at parties held in the Green Zone. She sang for the media to show that Iraq was functioning again.

Every time she went to the Green Zone it took days to get in and out. She would cover her face with a scarf when she left her apartment in Baghdad and go to a government building. She’d spend three of four hours in the building, to make sure that no one had followed her. Then she’d change her clothes for the performance and go to the Green Zone.

            After finishing her work in the theater, she’d go back to the government building for a few hours. Then she would cover up with the scarf again and go to a friend’s house. She would stay at her friend’s house for several days. When she was certain that no one had followed her she returned alone to her Baghdad apartment.

            She made connections with people in the new regime and was asked to work for a human rights NGO. When she took the job teaching music at the NGO she still believed that the American invasion and occupation might bring about a real change for the better. Working for the NGO made her feel like she was helping others at the same time she was helping herself.

            Whatever feelings of security she built up with her new life was shattered on a summer night in 2005. The police and militias were fighting a gun battle in her area of Baghdad that night. A group of 6 or 7 policemen in uniform broke down her door, entered her apartment and pistol whipped her. One man tore off her clothes and pulled her by her hair. He said that because she was a Sunni and she worked for human rights, killing her would be “halal”  or permissible under Islamic law.

            She was in so much pain by the time they started raping her that she still isn’t sure how many of the men took part. She does remember the officer with a limp who told her that he would come back any time he pleased and rape her again. He gave her a phone and told her to photograph any of her neighbors that were terrorists. He didn’t give her a definition of terrorist but presumably anyone who got in the way of official police raping and killing was considered a terrorist.

            The difference between the armed men who killed her husband and the armed men who raped Amel was just the uniform. It was in 2005 that Bayan Jabr took over as Interior Minister and it was during 2005 that men in police uniforms were seen killing, kidnapping and raping. Jabr was asked about this and denied that police were really behind the violence. Somehow the bad guys had gotten hold of large quantities of police issue guns, uniforms and cars.

            It didn’t matter to Amel. It didn’t matter what uniform the rapists wore or who was funding them or training them. All that mattered was that she was trapped. She didn’t have enough money to buy a plane ticket anywhere and leaving Baghdad by any other means was suicide. The roads leading out of Iraq were controlled by various militias. She’d never make it the border.

            She had some friends in Jordan. A woman she’d met at an NGO training in Amman, Jordan told Amel that if she made it to Jordan, she’d give her a place to stay. Her friend in Amman advised Amel to keep working in the choir because it might just give her an opportunity to get out of Iraq.

            Amel doesn’t want to talk about what happened to her over the next few months. But it looked like her luck was changing almost a year later. The choir was asked to perform in Amman for a week long celebration of Iraqi-American Culture. She would be given a hotel room, a salary and most importantly a plane ticket from Baghdad to Amman. The Americans assured her that the flight would be safe because they had secured the road to the airport and the airport itself.

As she left her home in Baghdad, she knew she might never see it again. Real freedom, the freedom she’d hoped the Americans would bring might be just a plane ride away. She knew she would never find it in Iraq and she’d have to look for it in another country.

Jordan was still accepting Iraqi refugees. All she had to do was get to Amman and present her story and her passport to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and she could get refugee status. That would mean that she couldn’t be legally deported for Jordan. After that, she might get resettled permanently in another country.

She had high hopes when the plane landed in Jordan but before she could get off the plane, the manager of her group collected everyone passports. He didn’t want anyone bolting when they got to Jordan so he would hold on to the passports.

This was a huge setback for Amel. Without her passport, she couldn’t possibly get refugee status. Without that piece of paper, she could be deported at any time. Being deported meant being dropped at the Iraq border. To get back home she’d have to face the same array of militia forces that kept her prisoner in Baghdad for so long. At the border she had no place to live, no connections and no way to make a living. She’d heard the rumors about people dropped off at the border and who were later found dead with holes drilled in their knees and their heads.

One of the men in the group kept looking at her with a mixture of anger and lust. When he got her alone he said that since she was single she had to sleep with him. He said that he worked for the Interior Ministry and was in the Badr Army. “Saddam had his time.” He told her, “Now its time for the Badr Army.”

She refused to have sex with him. A man from Dubai who was also in the choir saw what was happening and tried to keep the Badr man away from Amel. The Badr guy warned the man from Dubai that he’d better leave them alone or when he got back to Iraq, he’d track down both him and Amel and ‘disappear’ them.

She managed to evade the man the entire week but time was running out. She went to the manager and explained the situation. He couldn’t help her. His job was to make sure that all of the performers made it back to Iraq. He couldn’t do anything about what she might face once she got back.

The last night in Amman there was a party for all sorts of high ranking politicians. Amel knew some of them from her days of working for the NGO. Her friend from Amman was also at the party but Amel was too frightened to tell her about her plan to leave. Amel found someone at the party to help her. She refuses to say who but someone went to the manager and got her passport.

She caught a cab to her friend’s house and waited. When the party was over her friend and her friend’s family were shocked to find her waiting for them. But they welcomed her with open arms and gave her a place to stay. For a while, at least, Amel was safe. But she couldn’t stay with her friend for long because during the day her friend worked. That meant that Amel and her friend’s father would be alone together in the house and it went against her friend’s values to have an unrelated man and woman alone together.

So Amel had to look for a place to live. She didn’t have much money and housing is expensive in Amman. Over the last few years it’s estimated that a million Iraqi’s have fled to Jordan. That’s about 8% of the pre-war population. In some neighborhoods, real estate prices have increased 100% since the war began. All Amel could afford was one room with a corrugated tin roof that leaked when it rained. Rats and junkies lived nearby.

With the help of another Iraqi refugee she was finally able to find a room in a nicer area of town. It was built as a storage unit on the roof of a building. There’s a bathroom that’s nearby but she has to walk outside to use it. There’s no shower or bathtub, just a toilet and a hose with cold water.

She has no work permit so she can’t work legally. Occasionally she gets work as a waitress at catered parties. It’s not enough to cover the rent and buy food. She had a job for a short time working as a maid in someone’s house. But her employer beat her. She couldn’t go to the police because even though she has a residency permit, she’s afraid that she’ll be deported.

She’s afraid to walk around on the streets because she’s seen the white vans that pick up Iraqi’s and take them to jail and then to the border. Even though her UN papers are supposed to safeguard against that, she doesn’t have a lot of faith in those pieces of paper. She has no recourse if she’d deported. She’ll be far too busy trying to stay alive. So for now, she sits near the electric burner in her room while the winter winds blow outside. 

Authors Bio:
Marianne Barisonek is a free lance journalist in Portland, OR, USA and host at KBOO radio. Her book "Cause and Effect; Understanding Chernobyl" is available on amazon.com