Invisible People, Invisible Problem

Last night we sat with two men who are living in Amman and are trying to go through the process to flee to the United States. As I listened to their story I continued to further on a journey that was taking me into the complexities of this current Iraqi refugee crisis. [I feel a little bit like Neo in The Matrix having just taken the red pill! And down the rabbit hole I go!]

Already it is clear that trying to identify the exact number of refugees is a little bit like herding cats. No one seems to have a precise number and in large part that is due to the fact that this refugee situation is different than any other in one (at least) major way; this is an urban refugee crisis. 

[As background and to state something that perhaps all of you reading this already know: the three countries that are bearing the greatest burden of refugees are Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. It is estimated that 2-4 million refugees from Iraq have fled to those three countries placing an incredible burden on their economy, social services, schools and more. By all accounts, these 3 countries have gone above and beyond in aiding the Iraqi people fleeing. After so many years though, we are being told that these countries are "tightening up" their borders and turning more people away and sending more people back to Iraq.]

I am so used to seeing "camps" of refugees where there are densely populated locations with thousands of people in one spot. As our translator Jamal said yesterday, "The challenge here is that there are no camps to take a picture of. No one knows for sure where the Iraqi refugees are so how can we have an exact number." Here in Jordan there are hundreds of thousands of refugees but depending on who you ask, there are anywhere from 400,000-800,000 men, women and children who have fled their homeland. 

This trip will be filled with a great many stories, but one observation I have now is that the people who have fled, the refugees, have become an almost invisible people. They live their lives trying to stay out of sight for two reasons: 1) they do not want to be found and deported back to Baghdad due to the "tightening up" of the border that I mentioned earlier, and 2) they are fearful for their lives.

The two men we met last night left Baghdad not because they wanted to, and saw this as their chance to pursue the American dream. They fled because they had worked for the US military as translators, who then helped hide a British diplomat when a kidnapping was taking place.  As the militia in their neighborhood heard this these two men began receiving death threats. As they spoke it was clear that people very often follow through on their death threats and that these two men had no choice but to leave.

From what I am hearing their story is a common one. People who have helped the US military during the war [most often as translators] or put themselves in harms way to help the United States are the people most targeted by militia fighters in Iraq. They flee for their safety but are limited in where they can go.

Again, bear with me as I process this out loud, but it seems to me that the debate going on in the United States about the war is when to pull out our troops and get them out of harms way...makes sense. But where is the conversation about what happens to the 2-4 million refugees that have been created as a result of this war? Is there any thought or responsibility we have for these people?