by Till Mayer in Ruweishid camp
A volley of bullets hammered in the
night. Sabri Mohammed Ibrahim saw the gunmen standing in front of his house,
the moonlight shining on their Kalashnikovs, their long shadows scaring
the children. At that moment, the 59-year-old knew he and his family had
to flee Iraq.
All they had built up in more than 20 years came to an abrupt end. All the years he and his family had laboured since they came to Iraq in 1981 from Morocco, had been wasted. Every day, they had scraped the salt from the fields and planted palms as the sun beat mercilessly down on their heads.
Yet the Moroccan was always proud of his farm. He got it for free from the Iraqi authorities as part of a contract with the government of Morocco. Oil-rich Iraq attracted several million guest workers, many of them farmers. They came to cultivate new land and work in the oil industry.
Under the contract, Sabri Mohammed Ibrahim was meant to stay with his family for ten years, but the Moroccan farmers never returned home. "Iraq became a second home to me. Even though the work was very hard at times, we lived a good life in the Waset region," he says, recalling that in his village, Rashideyeh, and the surrounding area, there were 200 Moroccan families. "We made a lot of friends there," he adds.
But the moment the regime of Saddam Hussein fell, the community's days were numbered. "Your contract with Saddam is now nothing more than a piece of paper. Go home, you would regret it if you stayed", the gunmen told them.
Helpless, Sabri's family sought refuge at the Moroccan embassy in Baghdad. Together with other refugees, they spent two nights sleeping in the compound's garden.
Finally, they managed to take a bus to the Jordanian border. They crossed over to the refugee camp at Ruweishid, which is run by the Jordan Red Crescent with the support of the International Federation. Over 160 Moroccans have found shelter there, joining people from Sudan, Yemen, Palestine and Somalia.
Now Sabri sits in a dusty tent and tries to understand what has happened.
"What can I expect from the future? We are returning to Morocco empty-handed," he says, tears of sadness welling up in his dusty eyes. "We worked all these years for nothing. We have lost everything."
The old man wipes away the tears. A head of family cannot allow himself to show such weakness, especially when he is responsible for the destiny of the 17 members of his family - his wife, his sons and daughters and grandchildren - who are stranded in the Red Crescent camp with him.
"I do not understand why all this has happened. We were never interested in politics. We just worked hard to improve our lives. My daughter Khadijeh became a nurse to help others, but criminals looted the hospitals and robbed the aid that was intended for the patients. Now Khadijeh depends on help from others to survive. Her sister Ruqaya is not able to finish her studies. Who benefits from all of this?" Sabri asks.
Malwal, who comes from southern Sudan, asks himself the same question every day. The 51-year-old had worked in Iraq since 1984. Then he and his family escaped from war, arriving in the camp on 21 March.
"I cannot return to Sudan. In my home region there is also war. But there is no way I can go back to Iraq. What will happen to my children, my wife and me?" Malwal says in a barely audible voice.
"The Red Crescent volunteers take good care of us. But everything seems so hopeless. Minutes seem as long as hours - everything gets boring when you have nothing to do. The only thing you have is time -- a lot of time, to think about a future that promises nothing good."