Syria closes its doors to Iraqis
Posted: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 12:28 PM
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Baghdad, Iraq
By Stephanie Gosk, NBC News Correspondent
In January 2006, one of our local producers made a heart-wrenching decision. His previously quiet Baghdad neighborhood had become the latest battleground in the intensifying civil war between Sunnis and Shiites.
Mahdi Army militants, loyal to the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, had taken over the streets. Even though Haidar (not his real name) is a Shiite, he knew his wife, a Sunni and his two daughters, a 5-year-old and 18-month-old, were in danger. It was time to get them out.
"I rented a car and drove to Syria. At the border many people were leaving," explained Haidar. "It took five hours to get through." Haidar dropped his young family off in Damascus with his wife's parents and then returned to Baghdad to continue his work with us.
Since the war began in 2003 an estimated 1.5 million Iraqis have escaped the violence in Iraq and fled to their neighbor in the north. For over four years Syria welcomed them, granting three-month long visas at the border with little hassle and few questions. But as of Monday the rules changed. For families like Haidar's, the border is now closed.
Door closed
The Syrian government says the near constant flow of refugees has strained its economy and burdened social services. Visas will be granted to students, businessmen, and some government officials, but that is it.
Haidar, who has been back to Syria six times to visit his family, is now stuck in Iraq – unable to see them. On Monday he went to the Syrian Embassy hoping officials there might make an exception.
"‘You cannot go,’ the officer on duty told me," Haider explained. "When I asked him if I could see my daughters, he said, ‘It's not my problem. Ask your government.’"
Haider explained that outside the embassy, there was a crowd of Iraqis gathered, all clamoring for visas, and all were turned away.
One woman sobbing on the curb had left her family the week before just to pick up a few things from their abandoned Baghdad home only to find out that she couldn't return to her daughters back in Syria.
One young man who needed to return to Damascus for surgery will now have to rely on Iraq’s beleaguered war-torn medical services instead.
Better there than here
"Of course I am very upset now," said Haidar. "I couldn't bring [my family] here – especially [after] I saw my daughters. They are very safe and healthy."
So our talented hard-working producer is willing to let his daughters grow up without him. "My wife is unhappy with the situation," he explained. "She [said] to me, ‘If you want us to come back to Baghdad, I will do it, if this is the only way we can live together.’ I said to her it is impossible if you want to live [safely] and have a good future for our daughters. You have to stay there."
This week we heard U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus describe successes of the ongoing surge, but a discussion of displaced Iraqis was conspicuously absent. The U.N. estimates 2 million refugees are either internally displaced in Iraq or have fled the country and very few have returned.
Security successes aside, many of them feel it is still not safe enough to come home. For Haidar and others who have family in Syria, it now means seemingly interminable separation.
