After her husband’s killing, Amira sold a generation of her family’s belongings, packed up her children and left behind their large house in Baghdad, with its gardener and maid.
Now, a year later, she is making meat fritters for money in this sand-colored capital, unable to afford glasses for her son, and in the quiet moments, choking on the bitterness of loss.
The war has scattered hundreds of thousands of Iraqis throughout the Middle East, but those who came here tended to be the most affluent. Most lacked residency status and were not allowed to work, but as former bank managers, social club directors and business owners, they thought their money would last.
It has not. Rents are high, schools cost money, and under-the-table jobs pay little. A survey of 100 Iraqi families found that 64 were surviving by selling their assets.
Now, as a new school year begins, many Iraqis here say they can no longer afford some of life’s basic requirements — education for their children and hospital visits for their families. Teeth are pulled instead of filled. Shampoo is no longer on the grocery list.
Categories: Iraq
This article is several years old, but as the media’s focus shifts from the victims of war to its cause (namely Bin Laden), and as the U.S. continues upon its declared route of military withdrawal from Iraq, it is important to remember the cost of the war to the people upon whom it was visited.
and several years after the ‘liberation’ the situation is still the same. Whenever I meet an Iraqi, he is asking me whether I could help him to migrate somewhere – anywhere…