CAIRO: Omar is an Iraqi refugee who fled his war-torn country for Cairo six months ago. The 30-year-old mechanical engineer from Baghdad, left everything behind, including his family, spacious home and job and made it first to Jordan and then to Syria, where he couldn’t bear being treated as an unwelcome visitor before settling in here.
In Syria ”I set up a retail shop, but unfortunately I was heavily taxed. I couldn’t pay, so the authorities confiscated it and I left for Egypt,” said Omar. ”For me Egypt is a good destination, Jordan and Syria are already swamped with Iraqi refugees and have tightened, if not sealed off, their borders. They even deport many Iraqis directly back to Iraq.” he added.
Omar is one example of many Iraqis who settled down in 6th of October City outside Cairo, where he set up a café, bustling with many Iraqi customers. Most Iraqis live in Cairo’s suburbs, where they can find cheap apartments in places long scorned by Cairenes as too far away. Yet, wealthy Iraqis set up businesses, leading to a boom in the real estate market.
Egypt, having no borders with Iraq, hosts the biggest number of Iraqis (around 150, 000) while the Iraqi-adjacent Syria hosts more than one million, and Jordan more than 700,000.
Many Iraqi asylum seekers here described ties between Egyptians and Iraqis as both historic and cordial. At least eight million Egyptians have worked in Iraq and there is a high rate of inter-marriage.
”Our 30-year-old ties, closer than Syrian or Jordanian at public and official levels, encouraged us to head for Egypt, where we have acquaintances who could help us,” said some Iraqis at the café. ”People here are so warm, President Mubarak himself said that Iraqis are his special guests,” Omar said.
According to Omar who is Sunni, Sunni Iraqis feel welcome here in a Sunni-predominant society. By contrast, Syrian authorities are driven by sectarian motives, as a hard-line Baathist regime, with a larger group of Shia than here and for political reasons, they release their grip on Shia Iraqis and tighten it on Sunnis.
”If a Shia Syrian or Iraqi beats up a Sunni, the authorities will never be in favour of a Sunni,” Omar said.
One former officer in Iraq during Saddam’s rule who preferred to remain anonymous, said that Egypt has been a top destination for wealthy white-collar professionals who established their businesses here and will never return to Iraq.
But in Syria being deported to Iraq is commonplace. ”Here I lead a peaceful life, authorities will never expel me to Iraq, but if I went to Syria, I would not rule out being arrested and deported to Iraq. The Shia-dominated government of Al-Maliki and other Shia militias will see me as a remnant of Saddam who persecuted them. As a Sunni, they will definitely dismember me but If I were Shia, they would just lock me up,” the former officer said.
Many others who once lived a middle-class life in Iraq and ended up scratching a living here, have no other resort than Egypt where they can live at least peacefully.
”I can neither go to Syria nor Jordan, where the living expenses are much higher than here. My final resort after Egypt is Iraq,” said Moussa Kadhem, an Iraqi refugee who is not yet registered at the Cairo-based UNHCR. ”We know an Iraqi former officer here, his savings ran out, he can’t find work, he can’t afford high prices in Jordan and Syria, his only way out is Iraq, so we raised money for him in a bid to delay as far as we can the time of his deadly journey back home,” Moussa added.
Ali Abu Adnan, who made it to Jordan then to Egypt said the Jordanian authorities regard the Iraqis as ”illegal aliens” particularly following the 2005 terrorist attack when Iraqis set off bombs, killing 60 people in three prominent hotels in Amman.
Since then security services, afraid that the freight of exiles could become a sort of Trojan horse, have made it more difficult for Iraqis to renew temporary residence permits in the country, turning away single Iraqi men and boys between the age of 17 and 35 at the border. Here in Egypt, there are no sweeps on Iraqis, as long as we are not involved in any kind of riot, I don’t fear deportation to Iraq”
“You have to pay a fine of 1.5 Jordanian dinars [equal to LE 11] for everyday you do not have a residency permit in Jordan. Only rich people can stay there. We chose Egypt because we were told Egypt is cheaper and safer. Syria has started to see some militias. There are kidnappings inside Syria, the US which is not on good terms with Syrians could mount a military campaign in pursuit of terrorists infiltrating Iraq.
According to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, since 2006, Jordanian officials have been turning Iraqis away at ports of entry for failure to produce the new G series passports, a more tamper-resistant document than previously issued, but which Iraqis can only obtain from the Ministry of Interior by paying large sums of money, putting up with long waits, and enduring political and religious scrutiny by the issuing authorities.
Unlike Syria, Jordan bars Shias from crossing the borders, ”It wasn’t easy to get into Jordan. After the deadly journey, we had trouble at the border . They don’t let in Shia . If you say you are Sunni, it is okay, otherwise you are not admitted. They let us in with a one-week residence permit, but only because my daughter was sick,” said an Iraqi woman who is Shia and found no trouble entering Egypt.
Newsweek has reported recently that many in the overwhelmingly Sunni kingdom worry that the influx of so many Iraqi Shias would one day spark the very sort of sectarian violence that’s tearing their neighbour apart. There are rumors that agents of Iraq’s Mahdy Army have infiltrated the kingdom.
However, HRW stated that the numbers of Iraqis coming to Egypt is dropping because the Egyptian authorities are requiring face-to-face interviews with at least one family member at their consulates – but with no Egyptian diplomatic post in Iraq this means that they have to go to Syria or Jordan to get a visa to Egypt.
Commenting on the 150,000 Iraqis in Egypt, Abeer Etifa, media spokeswoman for the UNCHR in Cairo said these numbers are not confirmed: ”We have only 6,500 registered refugees and 7,000 others are on the waiting list.” Etifa said.
Asked about the influx of Iraqis to Egypt, she said that Syria and Jordan are imposing tougher restrictions on their entry requirements, as well as deporting Iraqis to Iraq . the burden posed by these large numbers of people is enormous.
“In Syria, Iraqis represent 10 percent of the country’s total population, straining the country’s local infrastructure and public services. The matter is different here.
Yet, Egypt is not so distant. Egypt has relaxed visa restrictions on Iraqis since the US invasion in Iraq and when the number reached roughly 150,000, Egypt imposed entry restrictions for security measures according to Egyptian government officials.
However, HRW stated that the numbers of Iraqis coming to Egypt is dropping because the Egyptian authorities are requiring face-to-face interviews with at least one family member at their consulates – but with no Egyptian diplomatic post in Iraq this means that they have to go to Syria or Jordan to get a visa to Egypt.
Commenting on the 150,000 Iraqis in Egypt, Abeer Etifa, media spokeswoman for the UNCHR in Cairo said these numbers are not confirmed: ”We have only 6,500 registered refugees and 7,000 others are on the waiting list.” Etifa said.
Asked about the influx of Iraqis to Egypt, she said that Syria and Jordan are imposing tougher restrictions on their entry requirements, as well as deporting Iraqis to Iraq . the burden posed by these large numbers of people is enormous.
“In Syria, Iraqis represent 10 percent of the country’s total population, straining the country’s local infrastructure and public services. The matter is different here.
Yet, Egypt is not so distant. Egypt has relaxed visa restrictions on Iraqis since the US invasion in Iraq and when the number reached roughly 150,000, Egypt impo
sed entry restrictions for security measures according to Egyptian government officials.
