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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Iraqi Children in Egypt and the UNHCR
Janet McGiffin / 22 April 2008
International NGOs working on behalf of children in Egypt, such as Terre des Hommes or Save the Children, are finding it difficult to develop a plan to fill the needs of Iraqi children here, primarily because it seems impossible to determine how many Iraqi children there are in Egypt, and what they need.
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Sponsor a Future Canadian-Iraqi Today!
Matthew Stevens / 20 April 2008
“Have you heard?” I ask a Canadian friend of mine. We are talking about Iraqi refugees here in Cairo. “A group of five Canadian citizens can privately sponsor refugees for resettlement in Canada.”My friend stares back at me. He’s typical middle-class Canadian, well informed, eager to make a difference. He’s never heard of this sponsorship program. “When did they start that?”
Inattention is the barrier... There is simply a lack of government resources to achieve plans that are in place..."
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The Window Overlooking the Yard Behind the Villa
Janet McGiffin / 20 March 2008
On any given morning, a quiet crowd can be found bunched in the yard behind an old colonial villa in Garden City, Cairo. They are gazing up at a certain window. Seventy-five years ago maybe, this villa near the Nile housed a wealthy French, British, or Greek banker or investor who came to build canals, office buildings, or the railroad. They erected these huge villas and held cocktail parties on the broad verandas overlooking the river. Now this decaying yet dignified old home is the medical clinic of Caritas...
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