Iraqi refugee Shahar Hussein Mehdi shows the food she is able to make on a budget of 20 JD a month.
Sharah and her 13 old daughter. They are alone in their apartment in Amman. Her husband was caught working and was deported in April 2008.
Sahar is 6 months pregnant with twins, she receives medical treatment from CARITAS and some help from CARE. She will be needing a C-section and must rely on neighbors to help her after giving birth. Her husband is in Iraq.
In Iraq Sahar Hussein Mehdi and her husband were very poor but were able scrape enough money together to rent an unremarkable home in Baghdad. After the fall of Saddam Husseins’ Baath party in 2003, their landlord came threatening them with eviction if they didn’t pay more rent. The couple said they have a contract for their home and wouldn’t leave. A few days later the landlord came back, pulled out a gun and shot. The bullet hit Sahar in the arm, shortly after they left for Amman to claim refugee status.
In 2007 Sahar gave birth to her daughter in Amman. In April 2008 her husband was caught working and deported to Iraq. Sahar is 6 months pregnant with twins. She lives alone in a small apartment in Jabal Hussein. She receives 80 JD from CARE, 60 JD she spends on rent, the rest on food. CARE also provides her with 3 diaper packages a month. “Thank God,” explains Sahar, “some of my neighbors help me when they can. But I am scared because I will have to have a cesarean section and who will look after my daughter or me.”
Sahar went to Lawyer Yara at UNHCR where she was told that she will soon be accepted in the resettlement program and if her husband can make it to Syria she can pick him up on her way. (personally I question these facts, but it does give Sahar hope and that I hope will enable her calmness in the last months of her pregnancy.) Sahar must wait til she gives birth to her twins (a boy and a girl), before she is able to travel, but it looks like she may get a chance for a new life…somewhere….inshallah.
No comments:
Post a Comment