Yurt
10-19-2007, 11:34 PM
Money gone, Iraqis reluctantly head home
DAMASCUS, Syria - Their money gone, Iman Faleh and her family packed their belongings to reluctantly return to Baghdad — a journey they said was like going to "death row."
The religiously mixed family — Iman is a Sunni Muslim, the others are Shiite Muslims — fled their home in a mostly Shiite part of east Baghdad in July and took refuge in Syria, joining an estimated 1.5 million other Iraqis here.
But in early fall, they became part of a growing wave of Iraqis leaving Syria for home, not because they are confident of Iraq's future, but because they ran out of money.
Others are returning because the Syrians have made it more difficult to stay. Most Iraqis cannot work legally in Syria and survive on savings or handouts from relatives.
"Going back to Baghdad means going to `death row,'" said Iman's 27-year-old son, Zaid, as he hauled luggage from the family's $1,200-a-month apartment in Damascus. "But we have no money left that could allow us to go on living here."
From their old home in Baghdad, Zaid said Friday that the family was trying to cope. "When we first got here we could not sleep for the first couple of nights because of the blasts and all-night-long shooting, but now it had become a routine," he said.
Zaid said they mostly stay inside "because its not safe to go out." And they are trying to collect money to return to Syria — a goal made more uncertain by new visa requirements imposed by Damascus.
............
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071019/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_going_back
When more return and realize that asshole gang bangers have taken over their homeland, then, will true change come from Iraq. The war has long been over, it is only little gang bangers who want their turf who continually cause death. There is NO organized effort against the US, period. It is gang land style fighting that is happening. Nothing more.
DAMASCUS, Syria - Their money gone, Iman Faleh and her family packed their belongings to reluctantly return to Baghdad — a journey they said was like going to "death row."
The religiously mixed family — Iman is a Sunni Muslim, the others are Shiite Muslims — fled their home in a mostly Shiite part of east Baghdad in July and took refuge in Syria, joining an estimated 1.5 million other Iraqis here.
But in early fall, they became part of a growing wave of Iraqis leaving Syria for home, not because they are confident of Iraq's future, but because they ran out of money.
Others are returning because the Syrians have made it more difficult to stay. Most Iraqis cannot work legally in Syria and survive on savings or handouts from relatives.
"Going back to Baghdad means going to `death row,'" said Iman's 27-year-old son, Zaid, as he hauled luggage from the family's $1,200-a-month apartment in Damascus. "But we have no money left that could allow us to go on living here."
From their old home in Baghdad, Zaid said Friday that the family was trying to cope. "When we first got here we could not sleep for the first couple of nights because of the blasts and all-night-long shooting, but now it had become a routine," he said.
Zaid said they mostly stay inside "because its not safe to go out." And they are trying to collect money to return to Syria — a goal made more uncertain by new visa requirements imposed by Damascus.
............
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071019/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_going_back
When more return and realize that asshole gang bangers have taken over their homeland, then, will true change come from Iraq. The war has long been over, it is only little gang bangers who want their turf who continually cause death. There is NO organized effort against the US, period. It is gang land style fighting that is happening. Nothing more.