Sheltering families - elsewhere
It’s been a long morning for Kamal*. As our Iraqi engineer, he was standing by with our satellite truck outside the Baghdad courthouse where Saddam’s Hussein’s trial is under way in case the Today Show wanted a live shot from our correspondent Mike Boettcher.
But the frantic calls Kamal was fielding today didn’t come from New York; they came from his family in Jordan.
"When they hear about an explosion, they [usually] send me a text message to see if I’m all right," he said. Today, after four big explosions in Baghdad and a climbing death toll, they just rang.
Kamal, a Baghdad native, moved his parents and siblings two years ago to the Jordanian capital, Amman. It’s a pattern that postwar instability and violence has forced on many middle class Iraqis, including some who work with us.
"We hear other Iraqis working for foreign companies are kidnapped or killed so I decided its better they leave," said Kamal, who uses his salary to support his family in an apartment in Amman. "I was worried, but now I feel they’re in a safe place."
Another employee, Abdullah, has just returned from the Syrian capital, Damascus, where he moved his wife and two children three months ago. "I thought about maybe bringing them back to Baghdad this time when I went to visit them, but they looked so happy there," he said. "The air is fresher, everything’s cleaner, [Damascus] is a better place."
Life in the neighboring countries seems a world away from the daily violence of Iraq. Public services in Damascus and Amman are an improvement over those in Baghdad, said Mustafa, a long-serving cameraman who installed his wife and two kids in an Amman apartment two years ago.
But the cost of living can be higher than in Baghdad, especially since many Iraqi families struggle to find steady employment in either Syria or Jordan. "One friend, he is an engineer, he gets $5,000 in Baghdad, but in Amman only $1,000," says Kamal.
And Jordan is no longer the safe haven it once was, according to Mustafa. Following last November’s triple hotel bombings in Amman, he says Jordan's intelligence service is more prone to stopping Iraqis at the border and on the streets.
When I ask him how long he thinks his family will stay in Jordan, he says, "I have an old friend in Amman. An old friend. He says, ‘Welcome to Amman. How long you stay here?’ I say, maybe two or three months. He said, ‘Me, I say that in 1948 when I left Palestine.’ That was more than fifty years ago."
Mustafa shakes his head, "Every time come back to Amman, I think it will be a longer time they stay there…. I’m Iraqi, but I don’t feel Iraqi now."
*Names of NBC local journalists have been changed for their protection.
'Where is the crime?' It was everywhere in 1991
EMAIL THIS
advertisement
Slide Show
- Life beyond the violence
Suicide attacks and murders due to sectarian conflict continue around Iraq. See how residents live their lives amid the attacks.
Read the Nightly News blog
