Caught between two difficult choices, Iraqis decide whether to stay in Syria or go back to Iraq

By: Vivian Tou’meh   |  08 August 2016

Khalidah fled to Syria in 2006 with her husband, her daughter and son after they faced difficulties in Baghdad, especially when many explosions took place beside her daughter’s school there. They felt it was not safe and had to go.

Syria has always has been a welcoming country and its people good hosts, according to Khalida, “People in Syria extended their hands for Iraqi families and helped them restart again since the first moments”.

When the family had arrived to Syria they rented a small house in Dummar Al-Balad, “I sold all my jewelry in order to pay for house rent”, says Khalidah.

Her husband was a professor of Chemistry at the University of Baghdad. In Syria he was unable to work at Damascus University, thus, he decided to give private lessons to students from the surrounding neighborhoods to provide some income for his family.

At the start of the conflict in Syria in 2011, a shell hit their house in Sahnaya they felt so unlucky, so Khalida and her husband decided to return to their home in Baghdad.  “We arrived in Baghdad to find our house in bad shape like a ghost house”.

“The house was destroyed and nothing was left, we stayed in it as we did not have any other choice”

The family stayed in Baghdad for just one year, they found the situation was deteriorating one day after the other, so they chose to return again to Syria. “In Syria, my two children were able to continue their education and they took excellent degrees”.

Khalidah appreciated the assistance that the UN refugee agency provided to her family, particularly the education grant, cash assistance as well as health and medical assistance set up by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent’s medical centre supported by UNHCR.

In early 2011, Syria hosted more than one million refugees including Iraqis, Somalis, and other nationalities. With the start of the conflict in Syria, many Iraqis thought of returning to their homes because they felt it was not safe anymore. Before the Syria crisis, no one considered this, but they were obliged to, because of the increased violence in Baghdad and central Iraq, so they were caught between two unsafe options.

Now, Khalidah’s daughter is studying at the Damascus University, as she was awarded an education grant from UNHCR to continue her education, her son is studying medicine in Damascus University. While speaking to us at Al-Nada community centre, Khalida with tears in her eyes said: “I wish my son can continue his studies in Britain as he always had wished”.