The streams of refugees that rush out of Iraq is getting wider with every passing day. Several hundreds of professionals and their families have left Iraq since the outbreak of war in 2003.
Dr. Nafie Abtan was practising in Baghdad till he received a hand delivered death threat. The writing on the piece of paper read ‘We tell you to leave your job and to travel and to leave your hospital’ and threatened to cut his head off, if he failed to leave the country. He left Iraq within three days of receiving the threat with his wife and young son.
Terrorists have been creating complete chaos by causing an exodus of professionals. Basic civil administration and health services inside Iraq are badly ruined. No one gets any help in times of need.
Abtan said he has lost ten relatives and four friends, including two doctors, in the violence in Iraq. Like other refugees, he has ben undergoing a trauma in real life. Now he works in a local hospital for $600 a month. One third of the money goes for the rent of the apartment where he has kept his family.
Abtan hopes to get a visa to the USA. But it is no easy task. The US authorities in Jordan have told him to approach the UN office there. The Americans are particularly reluctant to allow Iraqis get into their country. Only 500 Iraqis were given visa last year. The Bush administration has agreed to increase the number to 7,000 this year.
Most of the refugees cross the Iraqi borders and get into Jordan and Syria looking for safety and a fresh life on a foreign land. But, it is not an easy venture. The refugees are made to run from pillar to post at every stage. They don’t find even lowly paid jobs to earn a livelihood.
It will be years before the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees languishing in Jordan and Syria are able to return to their country. Only a halt to the sectarian violence in Iraq can bring about a change to the present situation.
