Baghdad may be safer, but few Iraqis in Syria risk returning (no flood of Iraqis coming home)

Baghdad may be safer, but few Iraqis in Syria risk returning
By Hannah Allam | McClatchy Newspapers

DAMASCUS, Syria — On a recent chilly afternoon, Bahija Jawad, an Iraqi grandmother living here, was out for a stroll when she noticed drivers looking for passengers to fill several large, white GMC trucks destined for Iraq.

"Baghdad! Baghdad! Rides to Baghdad!" the drivers called. Jawad began to feel faint at the mention of her beloved hometown, which she fled earlier this year after gunmen forced her from her home.

"When I heard those drivers, I could barely stand, and I started to cry," Jawad, 61, recalled this week at her apartment in Damascus. "One of the boys came up to me and said, 'Auntie, it's OK if you don't have the money. I'll take you for free.' I told him it wasn't a matter of money. We just can't go back now."

Despite reports of more Iraqis returning to Baghdad in response to the drop in violence there, there's no flood of Iraqis leaving Syria to go home. Interviews with refugees and aid workers indicate that most Iraqis share Jawad's opinion — that the current letup in violence is fleeting and that it's wiser to stay put than return to neighborhoods still controlled by the same unpredictable militants who forced them to flee.

The numbers bear that out. While estimates from aid groups indicate that 60,000 Iraqis have returned home from Syria, Jordan and other Arab countries, that number represents only 2.4 percent of the 2.5 million Iraqis who've fled their country.