By Maisarah Miskoon

The Beacon has featured many stories of student summer expeditions, and all of them have seemed to be trips of joyous fun, exciting adventures, and sometimes, of educational benefit. However, some of us weren’t so fortunate. One such student is Ahmed Abbas, a refugee from Iraq who came to the United States five years ago with his immediate family in search of a better life. Last summer, he returned to his birthplace and discovered that a lot had changed since he left half a decade ago.

On May 13th 2014, Ahmed and his family travelled to Iraq and safely arrived there. Upon exiting the airport, they embarked on a half an hour journey to their relatives’ place in Karbala. What was expected to be a 30 minutes journey dragged on as they were held up at checkpoints, all ten of them, along the way. Everyone was required to exit the vehicle while Iraqi soldiers did a thorough search of the transport and scrutinized their passports at every one of those checkpoints.
“There are some places in Iraq that you see people that look like soldiers at checkpoints but they’re not soldiers. They are terrorists. In those places, the soldiers were killed and the terrorists took their clothes, vehicles, and weapons, and act like government soldiers… You won’t know until you die,” Ahmed whispered to me, as we sat across each other in the library during our interview. His eyes were wide as he emphasized the last sentence.

As the interview wore on, he relaxed a little and grew animated as we talked about his cousins and how much he appreciated the cool and dry Maine weather as opposed to the horridly humid and sweltering heat Iraqis endure. But his voice dipped again as he described the conditions his cousins were affected by like inconsistent electricity supply and work was scarce. According to Ahmed, his cousins who worked in construction, were working twelve hours a day and getting paid for less than USD$15 per day.

He alluded that worsening conditions in Iraq was largely due on the war ISIL (Islamic State of Levant) had unleashed in Syria and Iraq. The people were subjected to curfews and poverty was rampant. Policemen were not strong enforcers of the law and nobody felt safe to go out at night, fearing arrest or worse, getting killed.
“I did not and was not allowed to go to a lot of places that I had planned to go to, like Baghdad and Babylon… In Baghdad, where the U.S. embassy is, is closed now! None of the employees are allowed to leave… U.S. had sent troops to guard the compound,” he explained when I probed further about his extended family and their plans to seek refuge. Many Iraqi citizens faced the fate of holding it out, surviving one day at a time in Iraq as the war on terrorism continues.
It was not the summer vacation Ahmed had envisioned for himself and his family as he constantly fears for his life for two and a half months in a nightmare of a holiday that was shortened unexpectedly.

“We took a trip to Basra from Karbala, which was in Southern Iraq, to visit my other cousins. But when we wanted to return to Karbala, we were not allowed to due to the fighting that had broken out between the government soldiers and rebel groups… We were thinking that if the fighting in Karbala worsened, we would go to Kuwait from Basra, and then from Kuwait, back home to the States. But due to the worsening conditions, the border between Iraq and Kuwait was closed… We were terrified. But as soon as Karbala was “open” we quickly collect our bags, and changed our flights as soon as we could and two days later, we flew back home.”

Due to the escalation of fighting within Iraq, his family came back half a month earlier than planned, empty-handed yet safe and undeniably grateful to be able to continue with their lives in the United States. He could only hope and pray for the lives of his extended family back in Iraq as the whole world watches.