Two years after fleeing Iraq, Omar Latif finds it difficult to talk about his experience. “Words can’t describe what I went through,” he says, sitting in the living room of his new home in Phoenix, Ariz.
In March 2006, Latif, a furniture-store owner, and his brother and brother-in-law were kidnapped off the streets of Baghdad by a Shiite militia group. The three men, who are Sunni Muslims, were bound, tortured and threatened with death. Omar Latif’s wife, Shatha, assumed her husband would suffer the fate of hundreds of other kidnap victims. “I didn’t believe he would ever come back,” she says.
But Latif did come back—after four days in captivity, the men suddenly were released. One month later, Omar and his family packed their belongings and fled across the border to Jordan.
Since the start of the Iraq war, more than two million Iraqi refugees have fled to neighboring countries, including Jordan and Syria. Another two million have fled their homes to safer locations within Iraq, displaced by fighting and sectarian violence. The IRC and other aid organizations have called the Iraqi exodus a refugee crisis of historic proportions.
In Amman, the Jordanian capital, the Latifs’ life was harsh. Like most of the 250,000 Iraqis who have crowded into the city, they lacked residency status, were not allowed to work. The family ran through their savings in 15 months. Their only hope, it seemed, was to apply for refugee status and move to another country,such as the United States. But the U.S. has admitted only 1,068 Iraqi refugees since the war began, a situation that Michael Kocher, who oversees the IRC’s Middle East programs, calls “tragically inadequate.”
Even Iraqis who worked for the U.S. military, have found the door largely shut. So it was something of a miracle when U.S. immigration officials informed Omar Latif that he and his family had been accepted for resettlement in the U.S.— in Arizona, some 6,000 miles away.
On Sept. 5, 2007, Omar, Shatha and their three-year-old son, Al Khattab, arrived at Phoenix International Airport. Awaiting them were experienced caseworkers from the IRC resettlement office. They immediately swung into action, placing the family in an apartment, translating paperwork and orienting them to the city. Most of all they made the Latifs feel welcome and safe.
Hazem Olwan, the Latifs’ IRC caseworker, has worked with Sudanese, Burundian, and Iranian refugees, but he knew that this family had special needs. An Iraqi refugee himself, Olwan was painfully aware that the Latifs faced not only the hardships and challenges of immigration, but also the emotional and physical backlash from suffering extreme violence.
“Establishing a new life in a new country is difficult for anyone, especially for those who have been violently uprooted,” Olwan says. “I know how they feel. There is fear for the future: Where are we going? What will happen to us?"
“I will reassure them and help as much as I can.”
With Olwan’s and the IRC’s help, the Latifs are adjusting to their new life. The family has settled into their new apartment. Omar is going on job interviews. Shatha and Al Khattab are eagerly learning English.
“It was very hard to leave Iraq and our families behind,” Omar says. “At first I was hoping that Iraq would stabilize and we could go back. But we are happy to be in Phoenix.”
A month after their arrival in the U.S., the Latif family joined a small group of refugees from the Phoenix area for a meeting with former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a member of the IRC Board of Overseers. “I want to personally welcome these families,” Powell said at the meeting. “I know that they will become great Americans.”
When Powell finished speaking, little Al Khattab, wearing a New York Yankees cap and holding a welcome sign, approached him.
“Thank you!” Al Khattab said, speaking his first words in English.
This story first appeared in the IRC's 2007 Annual Report.
