Then something really terrible happened.  A local boy was kidnapped and a neighbor said to their Mom, The boy who was kidnapped looks just like Baha and Dofuqar.  That thought terrified their Mom so they packed up and fled across the desert to Damascus.

 

Now their mother is sick and can’t work, so Baha and Dofuquar

have to work to support the family.  For the equivalent of 50¢,

their mother can get medical care at a local Syrian neighborhood

clinic but she cannot always afford the medicine.  Baha begins

work at 8 a.m. sweeping in a barber shop and Dofuquar begins

an hour later at 9 in the same shop.  They work long hours and

get home around 11 pm.  For the last several days they each

made the equivalent of $1 a day.

 

Aeaen, right, their sister who is 8 years old, is fortunate enough to go

to school.  Iraqi refugees only need to pay a registration fee of the

equivalent of $3. and they are allowed to attend Syrian schools. 

School books are provided free of charge.

 

 

Working Until 2 a.m. to Support Her Family

                                             

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Suhaad, (above, with daughter Fatma, 3 years) supports her severely injured husband and four children by sewing Muslim prayer garments for women.  She works until 2 a.m. and then gets up at 7 a.m. to see her children off to school.  For all her work she is still barely able to pay the inflated rents of Damascus.  “I am tired,” Suhaad told me.

 

Suhaad and her family’s troubles started when American soldiers entered Suhaad’s neighborhood in Baghdad during the U.S. invasion of 2003.  70 people in their neighborhood were killed and many more injured, including her husband  (above, left, in right photo, with our Iraqi refugee translator).  His leg was crushed and he still has not recovered after several years.

 

It costs Iraqi refugees only a few Syrian lira to register their children for school but because they are so poor Suhaad can afford only to send her sons to school.  The children spend much of their time at home in their small apartment with their bed-ridden ill father.  Friends bring some food and loan the family a bit of money to help.

 

I asked Suhaad what gives her the strength to continue.  “It’s faith,” she told me.  “We have to work; we have to survive.”

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our delegation concluded that one very significant aspect about the current Iraqi refugee crisis in Syria is who is not there.  Very few American agencies are there.  The United States is responding through the major United Nations-related agencies – the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, World Food Program, UNICEF and others receive U.S. support.  But very few individual U.S. humanitarian agencies are there.  Our delegation was almost alone in terms of specifically U.S. humanitarian presence.

 

Please help us continue this work and help us support these forgotten refugees (see “What You Can Do” on homepage).

 

 

 

Photos courtesy Wendy Keslick, Director, Children Creating Bridges

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A United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees blanket serves as a curtain for Suhaad’s sewing room where she works until 2 a.m. making 25 to 30 prayer garments each day.