The story of seven Baghdad families

Here are the stories of seven different Baghdad families and how their lives have changed since the United States and Britain invaded Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein.
Largely interviewed by Ali Hamdani, an Iraqi journalist for The Times, these individuals offer a personal insight into the impact of the past five years and the violence that has left, at the very least, tens of thousands dead and forced many more - Shia Arabs, Sunni Arabs, Christians and Kurds alike - to flee their homes.
The people who suffered most are least optimistic about the future. Those whose lives are becoming stable sound more upbeat.

Family 1: The Shia family forced to move from a Sunni neighbourhood

Mina Ta’e, a Shia Arab, lived with her brother and mother in Ameriyah, a predominately Sunni neighbourhood in the west of Baghdad. Al-Qaeda militants forced the family to flee to nearby Mansour, but that neighbourhood also became a battlefield between Sunni Arab extremists and the Shia al-Mehdi Army militia.
The 26-year-old bank employee said: “I felt very happy when the invasion happened. My father was executed by Saddam so I couldn’t believe that we were finally rid of him. I started dreaming of a new Iraq, a free Iraq. Five months later our dream started to vanish.”
Gunmen began killing anyone in Ameriyah who worked with the US forces. Nightly clashes erupted on the street between Sunni Arab insurgents and US troops, while in the daytime, theft and carjacking was rife.
Ms Ta’e said: “Armed groups started setting up checkpoints in the middle of the road, stopping girls who weren’t wearing a head scarf. They also told us not to wear jeans or drive a car.”
She and her brother moved separately to other districts but their mother remained until a gang beheaded the son of one of their neighbours in front of his parents. “That was the moment that we decided enough was enough and we should leave immediately before they come after us,” Ms Ta’e said.
Her family rented their house to a displaced Sunni family that wanted to move to Ameriyah. Ms Ta’e and her mother then moved to nearby Mansour, a mixed Sunni and Shia area. Shortly after arriving in Mansour, that neighbourhood also descended into chaos with al-Qaeda fighting the al-Mehdi Army for control.
Ms Ta’e said: “Two of my uncles were shot dead in front of our house while they were visiting us because they were members of the district council.”
About six months ago, the situation started to improve with the arrival of Iraqi soldiers, concrete barriers and checkpoints. “Some families have started to come back but not many. I still can’t return to my house in Ameriyah. It’s a very dangerous place for Shia.”
Asked about her thoughts for the future, Ms Ta'e said: “My life is better in terms of getting rid of the man who killed my father and also we are now able to travel outside the country and see the world … but that’s not enough because we are missing an essential thing in our life and that is safety.
“We found alternatives for everything else. We bought generators to replace electricity, we changed our houses, we changed our clothes, but we still haven’t managed to find a replacement for safety. I don’t want to live like a refugee inside my home country.”
Ms Ta’e said that she did not want the US forces to leave at the moment because the Iraqi Government was too weak to handle to Sunni and Shia gangs. “I hope things will get better the next year. We have nothing more than hope to live for.”

Family 2: The Sunni family forced to move from a Shia neighbourhood

Marwan al-Janabi, a Sunni Arab, was forced by Shia militia to move from the now Shia enclave of Hey al-Amel in west Baghdad to predominately Sunni Ameriyah.
He said: “Being Sunni or Shia was not an issue until the invasion when I saw many Sunni locals being killed in front of my eyes. Many of my Shia friends told me that I must give up my shop in the neighborhood so I sold it for half the price. I suddenly found myself rejected in the place where I spent my life.”
In October 2006, he found a bullet case on a piece of paper dropped in front of his door. Written on the paper were the words: “You have only 48 hours to leave the neighborhood or you will be dead.”
The following day Mr Janabi, who had only married three months earlier and did not want to endanger his wife, was stopped at a police checkpoint. Upon seeing his Sunni name the policemen grew suspicious and started to beat him.
“I thought that this would be my last day. Then a miracle saved me. A neighbour who knows me very well and works at the Ministry of Defence saw what was happening and immediately intervened. That day I knew that it was the time to leave. I couldn’t stay any longer after I almost saw death. We moved to Ameriyah near my wife’s parents’ house.
“It’s safe for Sunni Arabs here but it’s still a terrible life, like being in a big prison. You are body searched every time you leave the neighbourhood and when you return. No friends or relatives feel safe to visit.
“We feel completely isolated from the rest of the city, just like patients with a dangerous disease in quarantine. My wife is pregnant and I don’t know really what future our child will have. I hope it will not have to grow up in a fortress. “

Family 3: The family forced to move abroad

More than 2 million people have fled Iraq since the invasion and another 2.2 million are living like refugees inside their own country. Families have started to return home following the drop in violence but often find that their house is occupied by someone else or has been looted and, on occasion, destroyed.
Thayir Abdul Malik, a 28-year-old Sunni Arab, was chased out of the once mixed neighbourhood of Jihad in west Baghdad by the al-Mehdi Army. He moved with his family to a safer area, but constant gunfights on the street forced them to flee again, this time to Syria. Two months ago they returned.
He said: “We left Jihad in February 2007 after al-Mehdi Army militiamen started to kill local Sunni people. A friend with links to the militia told me that my name and my brothers’ names were on their death list so we had to leave within 24 hours.
“I closed my shop and we moved to my sister’s house in al-Adil. However this neighbourhood also became a warzone. Sometimes we couldn’t leave the house for three or four nights because of the clashes.
“In the end we decided to move to Syria and live off our savings but life was very expensive and we began to run out of money.
“Just two months ago we heard on the television that Baghdad was becoming safer and many people had started to return. We decided to come back to Jihad – to be honest we had run out of money as well so it was the only option left.
“My neighborhood looks completely different from the place I lived in for years. It is deserted. No shops are open, nothing is functioning. All you can see are the Awakening guys [armed neighbourhood watch patrols] standing at checkpoints together with the Iraqi army. It is more like a military base than a residential area.
“Also, it is only safe inside our neighborhood. I am still unable to visit next door districts because … the threat still exists.”

Family 4: The family that suffered despite not needing to move

People who were not forced to leave their homes also suffered as they watched neighbours, who happened to be of a different sect, persecuted. In addition, problems such as limited power and water affect everyone, while inflation has reduced the effect of a jump in wages since the invasion for those with jobs.
Mohammed Muslim, a Shia Arab who works at a telephone exchange, lives in Hey al-Amel, a poor area that is now strictly divided: two-thirds Shia and one third Sunni after many Sunni families were driven out by Shia extremists.
At the height of the violence, he would pass a dead body on the rubbish dump near is house every morning. Sometimes he would even see the killers shooting their handcuffed victim in the head before jumping into a car and speeding off.
Mr Muslim said: “My life was better before the war simply because it was safer and I was not living in an occupied country. Being subjected to this amount of violence has changed a lot inside me, I feel frustrated and disappointed.”
The 39-year-old had been planning to marry in 2003 but his wedding day was delayed by the invasion and repeatedly put back by the subsequent unrest.
“Whenever we set a date, either a member of my family or my future wife’s family would be killed and we would have to postpone,” said Mr Muslim, who lost two brothers, both murdered in separate incidents by Sunni Arab extremists.
Resigned to tying the knot amid the chaos, the pair hastily exchanged vows one afternoon without throwing a party because it was deemed too dangerous.
Mr Muslim is also beset by financial woes. His salary more than doubled from 120,000 Iraqi dinar (100 dollars) a month before the invasion to 250,000 dinar now, but the price of petrol rose in the same period from 5 dinar to 450 dinar.
“The Iraqi Government has hijacked our money, our safety, our normal life, our peace … replacing them with hatred corruption and sectarianism,” he said. “Sometimes I wish that Saddam would return even though I hated him.”
Mr Muslim also wants the US forces to leave. “They have been here for five years and all that they have brought to this land is destruction. If they leave then maybe we will pass through a difficult period for a while but I am sure that we as Iraqis will be able to find a solution to our own problems.”

Family 5: The man who was forced to defend his neighbourhood

Killings by Sunni Arab extremists prompted many young Shia men to join the al-Mehdi Army and conduct night patrols to protect their family because of an absence of legitimate security forces at the height of the violence.
Ali al-Rubaie, a 36-year-old Shia engineer, formed a group with his neighbours and friends to run night patrols last August in the mixed third of Hurriya, a district in west Baghdad.
He said: “More than a year and a half ago things started to get worse. Every morning we found dead bodies of locals in the streets. In my district they killed barbers, the imam of the mosque, a guy who used to run a grocery, and another guy who ran shop for spare car-parts. All of them were Shia.
“It became very difficult to live here. Most of the shops were closed and the services were bad … We were really suffering at that time and it created a rage against these Sunni tribes who were causing all the trouble, even helping foreign fighters to come to Hurryia and kill more Shia.
“I agreed with all the young men in my street that we should start night shifts to guard our neighbourhood after the increased attacks and the complete failure of the Americans to protect us.
“Fed up with the situation, many locals in the end just picked up their guns and attacked the places where these criminals were hiding.
“Nowadays the situation is much better than in other parts of Baghdad. The shops are open until late in the night. The services have improved. And, most importantly, we feel safer now. I don’t need to stay sleepless the whole night carrying my gun to protect my neighbourhood anymore.”

Family 6: The wife who lost her husband

Doura, a once Christian and Sunni Arab neighbourhood in south Baghdad, was one of the most notorious al-Qaeda hotspots at the height of the sectarian violence, with many Christian families forced to flee for their lives.
Shethah Shuhap, a Sunni housewife with three children, survived the chaos that reigned from 2005 only to lose her husband, Khalid, last year. He died in a mortar attack just as the sectarian slaughter subsided.
She said: “Everything is finished. My life has been destroyed. He was not just a father. He was everything to me and my family.”
In five years Mrs Shuhap, 30, has gone from being a housewife bringing up two sons and a daughter in a happy marriage with a stable income, to a widow working in a pharmacy to make ends meet. She has also experienced long months of terror.
“Directly after the invasion there were no jobs because my husband worked at the Planning Ministry. He was out of work for a year,” she said.
“After the Samarra shrine bombing [in February 2006] the security in Doura became terrible. Everyday someone was kidnapped. Everyday there would be a new dead body in the street. I was too afraid to send my children to school.
“I did not know who the enemy was: the Shia militia or the Sunni gangs. No one was protecting us. It was like a killing field. I felt as though I lived in a jungle. Mortars fell down on us like rain.”
For long periods there were no services such as electricity or running water. With other women in the apartment block, Mrs Shuhap made a hole in the ground floor of the building to take water, when it appeared, from an underground pipe.
Last year a surge of US and Iraqi troops into Doura helped to stop the sectarian violence and drive al-Qaeda off the streets but it was not the end of her suffering.
On August 24 last year, Khalid, her husband, was killed by a mortar that landed on the street outside their apartment. Mrs Shuhap said: “He was the breadwinner of the house. I cannot do anything by myself. I did not even have the money to pay for his funeral. We never expected that we will lose him.”

Family 7: The local mayor and his family who live in a fairly safe neighbourhood

Some areas in Baghdad have become relative safe havens, with the number of people living there greater now than before the war. The east side of the Tigris River is seen as safer than the west, though the risk of violence remains ever-present.
Abu Mohammad al-Shemari, the Mayor of al-Gader in east Baghdad, said that the number of families in this mixed neighbourhood of Christians, Shia Arabs and Sunni Arabs, has risen by about 200 to 3,200 over the past five years.
He said: “There was only ever a small amount of sectarian killing in al-Gader, which is run by the al-Mehdi Army. At one point, shops limited their opening hours and many Sunni families left to Syria, but in general al-Gader was better than other places in Baghdad. Some Shia and Christian families that were forced to leave Sunni neighbourhoods chose to move here.”
A ceasefire last August by the Mehdi Army added to the security in the district and shops are once again trading between 9am and 9pm.
Mr Shemari said: “The streets are filled with locals. Also, people from other neighbourhoods come here to shop. They have started carrying out contracts to rebuild roads, pavements and buildings. We have three big parks now and they are packed at holiday time. Everything is better except for the threat of bombs.”
Earlier in the month a car bomb exploded outside the house of a former army officer in the neighbourhood, destroying three houses and killing three people.
Like every where, the roads in al-Gader are dotted with checkpoints and barriers, but the houses are not surrounded by an isolating wall like other districts.
“My life is better now than before the invasion because I have dreams for the future of my children,” said the mayor. “I bought a car and a mobile phone. I even ate bananas for the first time. We waited 30 years to get rid of Saddam so I can wait now for the situation to improve.”

[Picture 1: US Blackhawk helicopters flying over Baghdad on March 9, 2008 (PATRICK BAZ/AFP/Getty Images);
Picture 2: A television crew filming on March 9, 2008 the "Statue of Liberty" which replaced Saddam's statue in al-Fardous square (PATRICK BAZ/AFP/Getty Images);
Picture 3: Iraqis walking past closed shops at Shorja Market on March 7, 2008 (PATRICK BAZ/AFP/Getty Images);
Picture 4: A British officer embedded with Iraqi troops deployed in the mixed, west Baghdad neighbourhood of Gazaliyah in October 2007;
Picture 5: Street vendors sell black-market petrol in Gazaliyah in October 2007;
Picture 6: Widow Shethah Shuhap and her 13-year-old daughter Farah pose for a picture after coming to speak to me at my hotel;
Picture 7: A young man leaning on a newly erected railing on March 17, 2008, in al-Gader, a relatively safe part of east Baghdad;
Picture 8: A man pulls a stunt on his bike in al-Gader on March 17, 2008.]

Comments

[loren England]

The EU should stop criticising US and UK soldiers and send help to protect these people. Only when people feel safe from the sectarian violence can this war be finally over, and the troops come home.. as heroes.

[B C Seals]

Deborah Haynes paints a grim picture, or rather the six families do, of life in todays Iraq. To a reader of this grim reality it seems that disarmament of all the warring factions must be a priority. How can their parliament offer peace and protection to Iraqis with open warfare on the streets?
For ordinary people to wish for the return of Saddam Hussein and his regime, to me shows the despondance the ordinary folk are in. There are no winners in war and the peace effort required is enormous if a happy solution is to be found. We in Britain enjoy relative peace and harmony, but go back in time to Dickensian days, which is not all that far away, where the common lot was very precarious.
A lot is made of ' child poverty ' today, whatever that means. There are more people today on benefits than those in work to pay for it all. There are continuous shootings, guns are supposed to be illegal. The cost of everything imaginable is soaring, way above the supposed inflation rate. Everyone is in debt, or so it seems. Things are going to get tougher in Britain, time to tighten belts. Put something away for a rainy day. Live within your income. And for heavens sake, if you can work, work. This country of ours, if it still is, ours is worth working for and don't you forget it.

[Bruce]

Seems to me that the problem for most of the people is NOT the invation or the US. It's others who are responsible. Just imagine how much faster and better Iraq can be if other countries stopped complaining and pointing fingers and started helping by sending security forces so these people can get control of thier own country. If your not part of the solution, your part of the problem.

[Mark]

The others who commented on this post have obviously missed the point.

The Iraqis have suffered tremendously because of the arrogance of the Americans and the other Coalition partners (who were, in any event, duped into the war by the lies of a misguided US and UK Administration).

There is no easy answer, but the only thing which will ultimately settle the country is for all foreign troops to leave. The country is broken and will have to mend itself as best it can. The occupation is an offence in their eyes and will continue to stir problems and resentment until it ends.

They do NOT need more foreign troops entering the country. They may require foreign aid, but with their oil revenues (if they haven't given them away to International Oil Companies) they can purchase what they need.