March 31, 2007

Most of the 2 million Iraqi refugees who have fled their homes come from middle class backgrounds, causing serious damage to the country' social balance. The rest are too poor to leave, becoming instead an easy target for militias who recruit them to their ranks, Al-Jazeera reports.

"(There) is nothing to do in Iraq", Ziad, an Iraqi refugee living in Sweden, is quoted by Al-Jazeera as saying. "University graduates and professionals cannot be part of the army or police, which are the only jobs you can have easily in Iraq nowadays."

Those who stay behind and are desperate for money, "(tend) to do anything to keep (their) head above the water", explains Ahmed Zayed, a sociology professor at Cairo University. "(And) warlords know how to play this game. They use their connections to close all doors; meanwhile they keep their doors open."

The fact that reconstruction in the south of the country has hardly taken off doesn't help matters. The TV network quotes Muhammad al-Darraji, director of the London-based Iraqi Development Institute:

"We are really surprised that nothing has happened in the south. All necessary resources are available there, even stability. If the campaign is to be kicked off in the south, even areas known as hot spots in western and central Iraq would rethink their attitude if they see real prosperity in the south."

One of the rare projects that has succeeded in this part of Iraq is the rehabilitation of the marshes, which were drained during Saddam's rule. But, as Muhammad al-Hasan, an Iraqi journalist from the southern city of Samawa, points out:

"They did a great job in bringing back birds and buffalos to the marshes, but is this really what the south needs? We have nothing. No pure drinking water, no electricity, no proper hospitals and, most importantly, no jobs."

Back in Baghdad, there is a part of the city where people walk around markets without fearing suicide bombers, where shops don't close at 8 p.m., as in the rest of the city and where men spend long hours talking in outdoor cafes, according to the Washington Post. But that's if you're a Shiite and if you broadly support the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army. Welcome to Sadr City, a vast Shiite slum and one of the poorest areas of Baghdad.

Most of the Iraqis that do flee go to neighbouring Syria and Jordan. But ever since Jordan practically closed the border back in January, Syria has become a hot destination for over 1,000 Iraqis a day who can afford the $400 trip from Baghdad to the At-Tanf border crossing, Germany's Der Spiegel reports.

The road is by no means safe and ambushes and kidnappings are frequent. They even have to watch out for U.S. forces. "When they're travelling on the highway, they shoot at everything that moves," the paper quotes taxi drivers familiar with the route as saying.

Families also often send young men to safety, so that they are not recruited by the militias. Sufian is one of them and has spent most of the past eight months in his room, waiting for his $500 passport - 10 times the normal fee. His plans for the first day he'll spend in Syria's capital Damascus?

"I would like to sit outside for a while," Der Spiegel quotes him as saying.