By Daniel Williams
An Iraqi refugee woman living in Damascus July In Iraq, Shiite and Sunni Muslims
live uneasily close to each other as bitter foes in a bloody conflict. In Sayeda
Zeinab, a working-class district on the outskirts of Damascus, they live
uneasily close as refugees.
More than a million Shiites and Sunnis have crossed the border into Syria, where
the ruling Baath Party pursues a pan- Arab ideology. Even though they now live
under a government that downplays religious differences, the two groups have
created a little replica of Baghdad in the Syrian capital -- one so reminiscent
of the city they left that mainly Sunni and Shiite areas are segregated by a
thoroughfare called Iraq Street.
So far, there've been no reports of sectarian violence. Exile, though, hasn't
meant forgiving and forgetting.
``You know, the Shiites are the problem in Iraq,'' says Sunni taxi driver Adel
Khalef, whose nine cousins were slaughtered by Shiites, he says. ``They would
come after us here if the government didn't keep an eye on them.''
About 2.2 million of Iraq's 27 million people have moved abroad, the office of
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said June 5. Ninety-five
percent have gone to Syria and Jordan, the two most-welcoming of the neighboring
Arab countries.
Open Door
Syria, with a population of 19 million, has accepted more than any other
country: 1.4 million by UN estimate. The government of President Bashar al-Assad
has been reluctant to shut the door.
The chances for settling beyond Syria are slim. The United States has agreed to
grant asylum to 7,000 Iraqi refugees this year. About 20,000 Iraqis made their
way, many smuggled, into Europe last year. About 9,000 arrived in Sweden,
according to UNHCR statistics.
Originally, the influx into Syria was Sunni, the 20 percent of Iraq's population
that dominated the country under Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader ousted in the
2003 U.S.-led invasion and executed in December last year. In recent months,
Shiites, the 60 percent-majority population empowered by Hussein's downfall,
have joined the flow.
Between January 2007 and mid-May, 41,000 Sunnis, 18,500 Shiites, 19,700
Christians and 5,000 members of smaller minorities registered with the UNHCR,
says Sybella Wilkes, UNHCR information officer in Damascus.
Hunted Down
The Shiites have surprised refugee officials, who initially thought they would
flee into Shiite areas of Iraq. Shiite refugees say they are hunted down at home
and their mosques are car-bombed. Syria, despite its 75 percent majority Sunni
population, is the easiest and most accommodating place to go, they say.
``At this point, every group is coming,'' said Laurens Jolles, the UNHCR's
Damascus representative. ``Iraq is reproducing itself in Syria.''
Jolles fears there might be a backlash from native Syrians about the Iraqi
influx. ``Things are only going to get more difficult,'' he says. ``There's
rising resentment at so many foreigners.''
Duraid Laham, a prominent Syrian actor, expresses the mood among many of his
countrymen: ``There are parts of Syria that are becoming alien to us,'' he says.
In the Sayeda Zeinab neighborhood, pictures of Shiite militia leader Moqtada
al-Sadr, accused by U.S. officials of unleashing death squads on Sunnis, hang
from doors and windows in the Shiite areas. An occasional portrait of Hussein
appears in Sunni dwellings.
Arabic Dialect
The refugees have brought with them their clipped Arabic dialect, their
bittersweet lemon tea, their penchant for Hussein-size moustaches and, for the
Shiites, black head-to-toe women's wear. They've also brought their suspicions.
``I don't mingle much with the Sunnis here,'' says Iman Jawad, a 28-year-old
widow who says her Shiite husband was gunned down by Sunnis on a highway last
September on his way to Jordan looking for work. ``I can't get over the fact
that they killed my husband for nothing.''
In Iraq, men began to come around her apartment making unwanted sexual advances.
Now living in Damascus, Jawad, who has no children, is looking for a male
protector. One suitor is Abdel Amin Salem, a 56-year-old widower.
In January 2006, he returned to visit his Iraqi hometown of Samarra after 15
years working in Germany. The killings of Shiites by Sunni marauders quickly
drove him and his wife out. She became ill in Syria and died from a kidney
disease.
`Finished for Us'
``All this because Sunnis kill Shiites,'' he says. ``Iraq is finished for us.''
He says he will try to resettle in a European country.
Khalef, the Sunni taxi driver who ferries Iraqis to and from the border, lives
in Sayeda Zeinab and condemns his Shiite compatriots across Iraq Street. ``In
Baghdad, if your name is Omar, an Ali kills you,'' he says. Omar is a common
Sunni first name; Ali, a Shiite. Khalef, 47, left Iraq in February after his
nine relatives at a car-rental company in Baghdad were fatally shot in their
office.
``Shiite terrorists killed my wife, right in our house,'' says Khaled Nouri, 37,
a fellow driver from the mixed Amr district of Baghdad. Asked how they feel
about their Shiite neighbors, both Nouri and Khalef answer: They want to escape
them.
``I don't care where it is, so long as there are no Shiites,'' Nouri says.
(Bloomberg)
