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)
