Friday, March 23, 2007
A brave few try returning to Baghdad homes - International Herald Tribune
When Hazim Said and his family returned to their house in southwestern Baghdad on March 1, two months after fleeing a murder and intimidation campaign by Sunni Arab insurgents, Said's wife and two sons collapsed to the floor in tears of joy and kissed the walls.
It mattered little that insurgents had looted the house of computers and other electronics and used it as a hide-out, or that most of his neighbors had taken flight and not returned, leaving their block empty and forlorn. They had their home back.
"The only thing I have is this house," Said, a 35-year-old Shiite minibus driver, said in Baghdad's Amil neighborhood, which for months has been a battleground between sectarian militias. "Without this house, I have nothing. That's the only way I can express it to you."
...
She tidied the house in preparation for her family's homecoming, and two days later she returned with her son and a car full of their belongings; her daughter and granddaughters were planning to arrive later. As they pulled up to the house, they saw a chilling message scrawled in red paint on the front wall: "Residents of this house, your blood is wanted. Leave."
"When I saw the handwriting on the wall, I became very scared and started to shake," she said. She decided to move back in with a niece in the Jihad neighborhood, where she remains with her family. "I don't know what to do now," she said. "I'm just crying and beating myself because I don't have any plans." ...
When Hazim Said and his family returned to their house in southwestern Baghdad on March 1, two months after fleeing a murder and intimidation campaign by Sunni Arab insurgents, Said's wife and two sons collapsed to the floor in tears of joy and kissed the walls.
It mattered little that insurgents had looted the house of computers and other electronics and used it as a hide-out, or that most of his neighbors had taken flight and not returned, leaving their block empty and forlorn. They had their home back.
"The only thing I have is this house," Said, a 35-year-old Shiite minibus driver, said in Baghdad's Amil neighborhood, which for months has been a battleground between sectarian militias. "Without this house, I have nothing. That's the only way I can express it to you."
...
She tidied the house in preparation for her family's homecoming, and two days later she returned with her son and a car full of their belongings; her daughter and granddaughters were planning to arrive later. As they pulled up to the house, they saw a chilling message scrawled in red paint on the front wall: "Residents of this house, your blood is wanted. Leave."
"When I saw the handwriting on the wall, I became very scared and started to shake," she said. She decided to move back in with a niece in the Jihad neighborhood, where she remains with her family. "I don't know what to do now," she said. "I'm just crying and beating myself because I don't have any plans." ...
Labels: war
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