Baghdad to America
by Jeremy Siegman / March 19, 2009
CAIRO—JANUARY 2009 On a cold fall night in the desolate expanses of Cairo’s suburbs, I get off the metro and ride a microbus to the home of the Salaam family (not their real name) with instructions to meet Mohamed near the local McDonald’s. Something vaguely American about visiting a family in a quiet suburb, near a McDonald’s makes me expect he will pick me up in a car—I am instead greeted by his son Hass riding a bike. Mohamed walks.
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Asylum: Found, Lost & Found Again
by Janet McGiffin / December 1, 2008
Ansam’s story has a happy ending. But the beginning and the middle were awful.
Ansam is a young Iraqi dentist with a soft voice and a bright smile. Until September 2007 she was living in Cairo with her mother, her two brothers, and their families, all having fled to Cairo from the war in Iraq. Unable to find work as a dentist in Egypt because she was denied a work permit, Ansam decided to visit her brother in the US, where he has been an American citizen for thirty years. In September 2008 she got a visitor’s visa from the US Embassy in Cairo and flew to Houston, where her brother’s friends urged her to apply for asylum. Ansam’s application for asylum was quickly accepted. “The officer said to me, ‘You will be the best dentist in the US,’ she smiles. Armed with her new social security card, she started looking for a job.
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Biased Italian Media Given Guidelines
Interview with Laura Boldrini, UNHCR / November 28, 2008
by Laura Cugusi
On 13 June 2008, more than 18 months after the Italian division of the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) made the announcement, the so-called “Carta di Roma1” (the Rome Charter) was finally approved by the Association of the Italian Council of Journalists.
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Surviving on Pensions in Iraq Means Someone Takes a Huge Risk!
Janet McGiffin / September 2008
A question frequently asked of Iraqi refugees in Cairo is, “How did you survive financially if you were prevented from working under the Saddam regime and sectarian violence after the Americans entered in 2003?” The answer for many is, “We lived on the pension income of our older relatives”—a survival method still used by many Iraqi refugees living in Cairo.
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Tell Me Your Story — Interview with Yasmine
Naseem Hashim / September 2008
Naseem Hashim, who translated and edited this personal story, is an MA student at Ain Shams University in Cairo. She works at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and she is a volunteer interpreter and case worker in the Iraqi Information Office in Cairo.
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When Egyptians lived in Iraq
Kifah .n. Abdullah / 05 August 2008
Iraqis refugees fled to Egypt thinking they would be accorded the same good economic and social privileges that were granted the eight million Egyptians who worked in Iraq from the 1970s through the 1990s. An Iraqi journalist now living in Cairo recounts how Egyptians fared in Iraq compared to his life in Egypt.
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A Businessman Without An Office
Janet McGiffin / August 2008
Hassan (not his real name) is in his late fifties, energetic, engaging and eloquent. “I am, in general, a businessman,” he says. He survives in Cairo using his skills and instincts for doing business via the internet and travelling to nearby countries to give lectures, training courses, and continue business relationships.
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Sixty-two and Looking for a Home and job
Janet McGiffin / August 2008
Dr. K. is a Civil Engineer and was Lecturer at the University of Baghdad for twenty years, then he was forced to leave Iraq because of threats to himself and his family from militia. He is a quiet man, grave but with an occasional illuminating smile. At 62 years old he says, “It is too late”. He is referring to getting a job, even given nearly forty years of engineering experience. There are many other Iraqis like him, refugees in their late fifties and sixties who are starting over when they were just looking at retirement.
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Tell Me Your Story - Interview with Mueen, 69 year old man
Interview by Azher Adnan / 24 July 2008
My sad story started during the last war when a projectile damaged my home in Baghdad. This caused a financial and psychological effect, and my wife died because she was afraid of the war – she could not sustain the events and voices of bombings and explosions. I lost my wife and my home.
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Tell Me Your Story - Interview with Ibrahim, age 31
Interview by Azher Adnan / 24 July 2008
“My family – which consists of my wife, myself, and my daughter (name withheld) - went to our interview at the appointed time. In the beginning came the question as to our sect – Sunni or Shi’a – and why we left Iraq. They asked what pushed us to seek refuge in Egypt, if we were threatened in Iraq, if our living condition was OK, about our health, and where we were living. They gave us information about our rights as refugees with regards to the Commission, and handed us the Yellow Card.”
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Tell Me Your Story - Interview with Mrs. Raja
Interview by Azher Adnan / 24 July 2008
Mrs. Raja, an Iraqi woman, says that she arrived in Egypt in August of 2006 with her husband and children and turned immediately to the Refugee Commission. She added that she had hoped a lot from the Commission, but “they completely ignored us and in the end they –the Commission – all that concerned them was the question as to our family’s makeup – Shi’a or Sunni.”
We received direct death threats. We were forced to flee after we borrowed a sum of money.…"
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Tell Me Your Story - Interview with Khalid, champion body builder
Interview by Azher Adnan / 24 July 2008
Khalid, 36 years old, told me. “I arrived in Egypt on September 2, 2006 after a severely painful period in Iraq. I applied immediately to the UN Refugee Commission and received refugee status but I remained waiting for an interview appointment until January 23, 2007. The interview was nothing more than receiving the Yellow Card [provisional refugee status card] and the question – “are you Sunni or Shi’a?”
… Because death would be better than the life of humiliation that we now live…"
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Following Traces – the ICRC in Egypt
Sara Angheleddu / 24 July 2008
Bahiga El Gohary started her social work career in 1998 as a caseworker with IOM (International Organization for Migration, www.iom.int) before becoming their Cultural Orientation Acting Coordinator until 2004. She has a BA with a major in Psychology and a career as a social worker: she was Senior Donor Officer at ADEW – Association for the Development and Enhancement of Women – and also Unaccompanied Minors Project Coordinator at AMERA – Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance – in Cairo. She is currently Tracing Officer at the International Committee of the Red Cross.
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Opportunity Makes the Difference
Janet McGiffin / 05 June 2008
Refugees, like all the world’s people, want to wake up in the morning to a chosen life filled with family, friends and opportunities. They want to feel in control of their destinies. They want reasons to smile. For Iraqi refugees in Cairo, the lack of opportunities can lead to feelings of distress.It is difficult for refugees to know what they can do to best move their lives forward. Dr. Nancy Baron, is an American Psychologist/ Family Therapist with 18 years of experience assisting war affected populations in Africa, Asia, Europe and the South Pacific cope with their experiences. She is currently in Cairo consulting to AMERA, Terre des Hommes and the American University in Cairo. In this second article for Iraqi Voices in Cairo, Dr. Baron talks about how how having opportunities can play a part in helping to manage feelings of distress.
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No Associations for Iraqis
Sara Angheleddu / 17 May 2008
Abdul arrived in Cairo in summer of 2006. He had fled the Iraq war, painfully leaving behind his entire life. There had been no time to pack. “All I carried with me was the suffering I witnessed in my country,” he says, “and my determination to help my people in exile.” So, with two friends, Abdul outlined a project to support the most vulnerable among the Iraqi refugees--but the project never started
All I carried with me was the suffering I witnessed in my country..."
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To Help Where Help is Needed: The YWCA of Egypt
Janet McGiffin / 17 May 2008
Emad El Din Street is a famous old street in downtown Cairo best known for its old theatres and elegant 19th century courtyard homes. Cinemas, coffeehouses, hostels, apartments and offices line the street today, and one of those offices hosts an organization whose fame far exceeds anything from the street’s past. The organization is the YWCA of Egypt.
we wanted to start in schools because if you do awareness training with children, in the long run you will have leaders."
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To My Banker
Janet McGiffin / 15 May 2008
In early 2008, a 76-year-old Iraqi living in Cairo sent the following email to the Financial Ombudsman at complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk.
“Dear Sir, Can you help me locate an External Account which I opened at Midland Bank Ltd in Earls Court on 5 August 1967? I was in London attending an accountancy course paid for by my British employer, Basra Petroleum of Basra, Iraq. This bank account has lain untouched these 38 years because I am Iraqi and shortly after my return to Iraq in 1969, the government of Saddam Hussein, newly in power, cut off all contact with the outside world...
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A Psychosocial Response
Dr. Nancy Baron / May 10, 2008
Journalists today repeatedly talk about populations as being “traumatized” by war. As a mental health person, I would never say “traumatized.” That suggests mental disorder and I would never suggest that a population of survivors is ‘mentally disordered’. Why put the stigma of mental disorder on an already victimized population?
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My Mission
Nada Ali / May 7, 2008
I started working with the Iraqi League in June 2007. I came to Egypt in October 2005 and was living with my sister’s family. My sister’s house in Iraq was burned and I have nobody left in Iraq. My husband was killed, my brother was shot dead in Baghdad, my parents were already dead. So now there are fifteen of us here in my sister’s flat. And one bathroom!
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Updated News Releases About Iraqi Refugees
Laura Cugusi / 07 May 2008
Increasing number of asylum seekers and refugees from Iraq invert the worldwide trend. The number of asylum seekers from Iraq is heading the total percentage of displaced people in the world. In 2007 it turned to be 45,200, almost double since 2006 when they were 22,900. Iraqi people who applied for a refugee status in 43 industrialized countries represent only 1% of the 4,5 millions of people fleeing Iraq...
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Just a Matter of Time
Laura Cugusi / 22 April 2008
There are many reasons for people to leave Iraq, but few places to go and fewer means of survival. Apart from the 2.5 million who found refuge in Syria and Jordan, the latest estimates from the Egyptian government are that 100,000 Iraqis are “surviving” in Cairo, although this number changes daily as people begin to return home.
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