He also, inadvertently, got a lesson in just how dire the situation of some Iraqi refugees is. He was fortunate enought to meet several Iraqi women refugees. Quite a few of them were Iraqi women who were raising their children (or grandchildren) without their husbands either because their husbands weren't allowed to leave Iraq or more often because their husbands had been killed in the violence in Iraq. He was awe-struck by the depth of gratitude these women felt when he was able to help them with groceries or some money. The stories he heard and the things he saw would make you cry, but the problem is so much deeper than the few women he was able to help.
Since he returned, I have done some investigating on my own. I already knew that the Iraqi refugee situation was bad in Jordan. We have seen Iraqi women trying to sell whatever they can on the side of the street just to put food in their mouths. There are hundreds of thousand of Iraqi's living in Jordan and a great deal of them are living in abject poverty. It doesn't just affect the refugees, either. Our nieces and nephews have to attend school in shifts because there isn't room for all the students at once now that there are so many Iraqi children attending school in Jordan (but thank God the Iraqi children are now allowed to attend school). And the schools were overwhelmed with the number of students and half of the kids we know did not have books two months into school because there weren't enough to go around. The cost of living in Jordan has risen dramatically since the war began but Jordanians aren't making any more money than they were prior to the war. We even felt the difference when we were there in August, and we certainly have more disposable income than most in Jordan. Finally, there are refugee camps where conditions are much less than ideal.
I recently was reading the webpage for Refugees International and I came across these facts:
- Over 4 million Iraqis have been displaced from their country by violence
- 1.5 million are now living in Syria
- 1 million refugees inhabit Jordan, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen, and Turkey
I don't know what the solution to these problems is, although I am sure that the trillions of dollars that have been spent on the Iraq war could go a long way towards helping solve some of the problems. We created this refugee crisis, whether intentionally or not, and I think it behooves the US to fix it. Not only will it improve our image around the world, but it's simply the right thing to do.
