In the hardscrabble Beirut suburb of
Sad al Baoushriye, the narrow apartment rented by the Yousifs, a family
of refugees from northern Iraq, is shrouded in sorrow.
The
Yousifs were forced to flee the Nineveh region near Mosul in Iraq in
2015 amid a wave of reprisals against Christians and minorities, and
persecution by extremists. The family of seven, who span three
generations, first moved to Erbil. Then, still feeling vulnerable, they
travelled on to Lebanon, with little more than memories.
Though
the security worries have diminished, life in exile has itself been
fraught. Soon after escaping from Iraq, Mirna, the mother, suffered
another loss – her husband, Munzer, died in Beirut of natural causes.
The four children, aged between 12 and 22, who are still with her in
Lebanon, were left without a father.
"First my son had to leave
Iraq as he was being forced to go and fight, then we followed. It was
too dangerous to stay," Mirna told UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, during a
visit to the apartment alongside an Iraqi volunteer from the Catholic
NGO Caritas, a UNHCR partner.
As she spoke, Mirna rustled around
for a photo printout of the former family home, now just pockmarked
walls encasing bricks, dust and twisted metal fragments. "We've lost our
home. It was completely destroyed. What have we got to go back to?"
As
well as keeping the immediate family together, Mirna has to care for
her bereaved parents-in-law. Her mother-in-law, Faheemah, 82, is nearly
blind and almost entirely bedridden, having suffered a stroke and other
complications; her swollen legs only carry her from bed to bathroom,
when assisted. The cost of medication has stretched family finances to
breaking point.
Her father-in-law, Gorgis, 83, sometimes leaves
the apartment but generally ventures no further than the local church or
a plastic chair in the ground-floor car park, from where he surveys the
street through glassy eyes.
"We've lost our home. It was completely destroyed. What have we got to go back to?"
During
the visit, Gorgis broke into a mournful Chaldean chant that appeared to
an outsider to be a lament for home, and perhaps the family's current
plight.
Dreams of the future are mostly on hold. The family's
daily preoccupation, like that of so many other refugees, is financial.
The apartment that they rent in Beirut's poor quarter costs US$700 a
month. Food, utilities, medicine and other costs add hundreds more to
monthly outgoings. UNHCR cash assistance helps cover some of this, but
it is far from sufficient.
That means the two older children,
Michael and Media, 22 and 18 respectively, have to work menial jobs in
Beirut to keep the family afloat. Hence their prospects are dimming –
something that is a preoccupation for refugee parents the world over.
As
fighting continues in parts of northern Iraq after extremists were
pushed from Mosul last year, many of those forced to flee – like the
Yousifs – have abandoned hope of returning home, fearing sectarian
tension may endure, and are looking at a protracted exile, or moving on
to other countries under UNHCR resettlement programmes, though places
are few and reserved for the most vulnerable.
Earlier in the
day, at a weekly therapy and discussion session for Iraqi refugees run
by Caritas, dozens of Iraqi Christian refugees spoke over black tea
about the pain of limbo. It is a life of frustration at best, often
leaving psychological scars.
"I feel I'm living on borrowed
time," said Laith, a man in his 60s. "I want to provide for my kids, but
I can't. My son used to be top of his class in Iraq. Now he's a
labourer."
Among the daily challenges cited by Laith and other
Iraqi Christians at the session were depression, health issues, lost
opportunities for their children and financial hardship. Most expressed a
desire to move on to a new life elsewhere, if possible.
"I feel I'm living on borrowed time. I want to provide for my kids, but I can't."
A
study published by the World Council of Churches and Norwegian Church
Aid indicates that sectarian feelings in Iraq had "become deeply
ingrained" and warned that the defeat of extremists alone "will not
solve these underlying dangers or ensure that minorities return to their
place of origin." It stressed the need to keep providing flexible and
sufficient humanitarian funding in Iraq.
The diaspora is spread
wide: Last year there were nearly 260,000 Iraqi refugees registered in
Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf Cooperation Council
countries.
A number of refugees at the Caritas session said they
felt more at ease in Lebanon, partly because of its large Christian
community.
"Although the conditions here are extremely
difficult, the most important thing is that we feel safe," said
Josephine, an Iraqi mother whose son was an engineer in Iraq. "He now
gets small jobs in Lebanon, and earns no more than US$400 a month."
Minorities
in Iraq have been especially affected by recent violence, not least
Nineveh's Christians. In all country offices, UNHCR has measures to
ensure that all asylum-seekers, regardless of their religion or
background, have access to its services.
Indeed, the Agency
assists all refugee communities – including religious minorities – to
register, including via mobile registration units, trained outreach
teams and help desks in areas where these groups are concentrated.
Back
in Beirut, one thing that provides a constant for the Yousifs is the
local church, where most of the family joins other Iraqi Christians to
pray for better times.
Gorgis, the father-in-law, worries about
the family's future while they are in limbo. "Every day I ask God to
help us," he said, his voice cracking as he fought back tears.
