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First refugees from Iraq war despair about their future
Episcopal News Service
Issue:
Section:
2003-074-6
Posted: Friday, April 04, 2003
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The first group of refugees from the Iraq war--many of them Africans--ended up in a camp over the border in Jordan where they expressed deep fears and despair about their future.
About 200 refugees huddled in tents on a bleak, cold landscape in blinding sandstorms. A Sudanese couple said that they had left behind their five children when they escaped from Baghdad by bus. They said that their lives have been destroyed. 'Where are we supposed to go?' asked Milewan. 'We do not want to go back to Sudan because of fighting between the military and different tribes. And we cannot go back to Baghdad.'
Another Iraqi father, born and raised in Baghdad, fled with his wife and three children soon after the war began. 'We heard a bomb detonating and we ran from our apartment down to the basement with many other people in the house,' he said. 'We are afraid for our friends in Baghdad. We are thankful for staying here. We get good food and we have fresh water, but our tent is cold at night.'
A network of churches in Jordan, supported by British Christian relief and development agency Tearfund, is feeding the refugees. So far the expected mass exodus from Iraq into Jordan has not materialized. 'We are ready and waiting should thousands more refugees flee Iraq and head this way,' said Mark Smith of the Jordanian Evangelical Community for Relief and Development.
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| © 2004, The Episcopal Church, USA. Episcopal News Service content may be reprinted without permission as long as credit is given to ENS. |
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