LITTLE BAGHDADON THE BANKS OF THE NILE: Five years ago yesterday US armoured vehicles rolled into central Baghdad and helped supposedly jubilant Iraqis to topple a huge statue of Saddam Hussein. The scene remained the ultimate camera moment for months, capturing the fall of a dictator who had promised his people that the Battle of Baghdad would be a 21st-century reenactment of the Battle of Stalingrad. Al-Ahram Weekly commemorates the occasion through testimonies from inhabitants of the Iraqi capital Trapped between Egypt and Iraq The plight of Iraqi refugees in Egypt is compounded by a lack of access to education or to work Ahmed, an Iraqi from the Dora district of Baghdad, who now lives in 6 October City, 25 kilometres from the centre of Cairo on the desert road to Alexandria, says the events of 9 April 2003 are indelibly etched in his memory. Ahmed says, "I was prepared to defend Baghdad, I had a Klashnakov, and a tunnel was dug under my house in preparation." From his home bordering an agricultural area, he could clearly observe things happening a few miles away. "Six US armoured vehicles rumbled threateningly through al-Bayaa and al-Sayidiya approaching the city," he recalls. It did not take long for Ahmed to realize the futility of trying to stop tanks with a Klashnakov. He locked himself inside his house that day and did not go out for a long time. Like many Iraqis, he believes that some top-ranking Iraqi officers had been bought off before the decisive moment and that this was the main reason the promised battle of Baghdad never took place. A graduate of Baghdad University's Faculty of Science, Ahmed was near completing his Masters degree in geology when he was injured in a car bomb. "I had already lost a number of my friends, but like many others I chose to defy circumstances and continue my studies. I believed, and still believe, in what I was doing," he says. "I didn't want to let the occupation stop me from fulfilling my dreams, especially because I know that my subject of specialisation can really help my people." He explains that he chose to focus on remote-sensing because it can be used to clean up river pollution. While this was not the first time Ahmed had been injured, cracks to his skull meant that he had to leave Iraq, albeit temporarily, for treatment because "the health care system in Iraq, which was once so strong, has been destroyed." With friends in Jordan, and the promise of free treatment at an Amman hospital, Ahmed tried to get there. However, he was forbidden entry and was deported -- in violation of his rights as a de facto refugee -- 24 hours after he arrived in Jordan. Worse still, he had paid the cost of his own flight and now found himself having to pay for the return trip as well. He urgently needed to find a solution to his medical condition, and he chose to come to Egypt, partly because he knew resources in Syria had already been overwhelmed by the presence of 1.5 million Iraqi refugees following 2003. "I came to Egypt in November 2006. I knew some people here, and since then several more of my friends from Baghdad have arrived," Ahmed comments. "Some of them have found refuge here, but others have found life to be simply unsustainable and have decided to return to Iraq." Like 10,500 other Iraqis in Egypt registered as refugees or asylum-seekers, Ahmed has been registered as a refugee by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Cairo and given a yellow card that he can use to secure temporary residence. Those Iraqis who have registered with the UNHCR are, however, in the minority. Though the exact number of Iraqis seeking refuge in Egypt is unknown, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimates that the actual number lies somewhere between 70,000 and 150,000. Abeer Etefa, the spokesperson for UNHCR Cairo, believes that more Iraqis should approach the office for prima facie registration -- at the very least in order to regularise their status. "We are providing emergency cash assistance based on a needs assessment, as well as assistance to pay school fees," she told the Weekly, explaining that UNHCR Cairo's focus rests on those who have registered and not beyond. "Many may feel there is no point in registering, though we have issued calls for Iraqis to approach us. Our regional funding for the assistance of Iraqi refugees is so tight that broader levels of assistance are simply not possible at this stage." Given the large numbers of people involved, and the comparatively few that have applied for refugee status, all this means that between 60,000 and 140,000 Iraqi refugees in Egypt are living without legal recognition, which constitutes the most basic form of protection. Even for those who have registered with the UNHCR, the weight of life in exile when combined with the lack of opportunities to work renders life extremely difficult. Compounding such difficulties is the fact that the Egyptian authorities have forbidden Iraqi refugees from setting up their own associations. "Those who receive assistance from UNHCR do so via a Sudanese NGO, because we Iraqis are forbidden to set up NGOs of our own," Ahmed says. Like all Iraqi refugees -- registered or not -- Ahmed is not allowed to work. He has also been unable to complete his degree in Egypt, because Cairo's public universities have informed him that he will have to pay fees at the rate set for foreign students. "The US-led occupation of Iraq and the militias that started to operate after the invasion have done far more than kill Iraqis," Ahmed says. "They have also killed the culture of learning that Iraq fostered. I would never have imagined that I would be unable to complete my studies. I would never have imagined that I would be prevented from working in such a way as to put my education to good use. I am especially concerned, because if I don't keep working, I will forget what I have learned. The occupation is not only killing Iraqi bodies, but it is also killing Iraqi minds." Iraqi refugee families are forced to live off whatever savings they have managed to take with them, and the conditions they often encounter in exile constitute a direct attack on their dignity. To Ahmed, the policy of denying him access to university education at local rates is barely intelligible: "if I graduate, I can become a teacher at a university here," he says. "Surely that would be good for everybody." While he says that Egyptian people have been kind enough, the country's policy of what appears to be the criminalisation of Iraqis has not. "Egypt is a poor country. If its own people are suffering and unable even to buy bread, then we Iraqis cannot expect to be better off," he says. "But Iraq's resources are being sold at exorbitant prices. I as an Iraqi have the right to a share of revenues from oil sales," he adds. Ahmed's statements resonate with the goal of the Iraqi International Initiative which has demanded that the UN Security Council pass a resolution obliging the Iraqi government "to allocate proportionate revenue to displaced Iraqi citizens," since this "is the only efficient way for the country of origin and the international community to fulfill their obligations towards both Iraqi refugees and hosting countries, while preserving the rights of refugees and their dignity as Iraqi citizens." According to Mohamed Sami, an official at the Egyptian foreign ministry, the government is doing what it can within the resources available. "We understand our obligations under international law, but we cannot do more for the Iraqis than we can for the citizens of Egypt," he told the Weekly. However, refugee lawyer Ashraf Milad suspects that discrimination is taking place in the enforcement of the prohibition on working. "Iraqis are effectively treated like any other foreigner here, without the additional protections offered under refugee law," Milad said. "But a French man working illegally in Egypt will never be harassed, while an Iraqi found to be working illegally could well be." As things stand, many Iraqi families face a daily dilemma, being caught between remaining in Egypt and leading a life of invisibility, or returning to their country and facing the near- constant threat of death. The fact that exiting from Iraq has become well-nigh impossible since the start of 2007 because of the closure of land borders and the extreme difficulty for an Iraqi to secure a visa at any foreign embassy in Baghdad only heightens the dilemma. Those who choose to return to Iraq from Egypt know that they may become trapped in the country. "I speak sometimes, whenever possible, to my friends at the university in Baghdad. They beg me not to return because the horror and danger of what they are living under is so great," Ahmed says. "So I stay in Cairo, knowing my stay is temporary, though I don't know when it will end. Even so, the pain of exile is so great. Think about it: what happens to a leaf when it has been cut from the tree?" Ahmed's friend Ali is in his mid-twenties and also arrived in Cairo near the end of 2006, along with his brother and his brother's family. To him, exile has been just as unkind. He does not work, and spends much of his day paying visits to family and friends, trying hard to retain his resilience. "Even in the worst of circumstances, I believe in maintaining strength and keeping my heart from giving in," he says. Life for Ali's family in Baghdad was under constant threat. His brother, a doctor in computer engineering, used to work for the army under the former Iraqi regime. "He received many death threats, and we feared that his children would be harmed. This is because militias loyal to the current government -- or to the US or Iran -- are targeting children in order to break the will of their families," Ali says. Ali's sister-in-law, Aysar Hekmat, believed that Cairo would be a good place for her and her husband to raise their three children. A graduate in physics, to her and her family the opportunity to educate the children in safety was one of the main reasons behind the decision to leave Baghdad. "We really thought things would be better for the children here in Egypt, but we were wrong," she told the Weekly. Five-year-old Omnia is too young to attend elementary school, but her elder brothers' education is costing the family almost LE2,000 a year -- money which she does not have. Next September, Omnia is due to enter school. "With the level of education my husband and I have, we cannot imagine failing to put her through school," Aysar says. "However, even if UNHCR provides part of this sum as educational assistance, the extra money we need to pay for our children's education makes it impossible for us to think of staying in Egypt." It is because of the family's fundamental belief in education, and their refusal to fail to put Omnia through school, that they will return to Baghdad at the end of this academic year. "We just can't afford to stay any longer in a country where we are unable to work. Even if we were able to work illegally, given the soaring prices in Egypt we simply wouldn't be able to make enough to make it through the year," Aysar adds. She tells the story of two Iraqi friends who started mini-markets in 6 October City, where the highest number of Iraqi refugees in Egypt currently live. "They went bankrupt. The costs of maintenance were too high, and they were not experienced in business. They are academics," she says. "We have seen enough here, and know that it is better for us to go back to Baghdad, though we know how dangerous that will be. We have decided that it is better to die in our country than to live this way abroad in a country where we cannot survive in dignity." What may make her and her family's return all the more dangerous is the sectarian nature of current conditions in Iraq. "My husband and I grew up in a city where it never mattered what one's religious denomination was," Aysar says. "I am Shia, and my husband is Sunni. We never made any distinction. Now Baghdad is being divided along sectarian lines. Our love for our family, and for Iraq, is strong, and I pray it is strong enough to overcome this darkness." Nevertheless, she fears the discrimination her husband might face in trying to secure work if they do return to Baghdad. If the current regime does not actively target her husband, it will most likely discriminate against any attempts he makes to secure work. And once Aysar and her family are in Iraq, they know there will be no way out -- at least for some time to come. For Ahmed, Iraq will not always be this way. "There are a great many people resisting militarily, many of them from the disbanded army of the former regime," he told the Weekly. To him, the fact that almost 4.5 million Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes either to other areas of Iraq or beyond the country's borders since the 2003 invasion is not a coincidence. On the contrary, the fact that so many educated Iraqis should find themselves unable to study or to work away from their homes is part and parcel of an attempt to destroy the core of Iraq. "Being away from Iraq, it is hard to know what exactly is going on inside. But I have faith in our people, because we are rich in our minds. To get a permanent hold of the oil wealth, the occupiers know they will first have to erase our minds," he says. "They are trying hard, but we must resist."
