Back in June, I wrote about a young Iraqi man named Mohammed Abdul Kareem, or MAK, the nickname given to him by the U.S. soldiers he worked with for three years before he fled to Syria upon receiving death threats.
His story was emblematic of the predicament dozens of Iraqi interpreters face when U.S. forces rotate out of Iraq and leave their Iraqi allies behind.
Militants have branded them traitors to their people for helping the occupying army, and the U.S. government has resettled only a handful, despite promises that allies like MAK will get top priority for admittance to the United States.
Most of them, like MAK, are in limbo, stuck in the relative safety of Syria or Jordan if they're lucky. Others continue their dangerous work in Baghdad, lying to friends and even relatives about their jobs, and praying the insurgents don't find them. (Click here to read the story about MAK or listen to an audio slideshow in which he describes his downward spiral from trusted U.S. ally to destitute refugee.)
Sometimes, you write these kinds of stories and miracles happen. If the story ends up on the desk of the right person, the red tape is cut, a visa is issued and the subject is spirited to safety. Unfortunately, that didn't happen in MAK's case.
Last night, we met up with him again in Damascus and heard the harrowing tale of how he's spent the past five months. After the initial story was published June 19, a few outraged readers asked how they could help MAK survive in Syria, even offering to wire him money to express their gratitude for his service to the U.S. military.
However, none of their generous offers worked out because transferring money to Syria can raise red flags with Homeland Security. In Syria, MAK was too scared to approach the U.S. diplomatic mission for fear the local authorities would pick him up and question him about his work with the American military in Iraq.
Nearly broke and desperate to leave the Middle East, MAK took a path of last resort: hiring a smuggler to take him from Turkey to Greece, where he hoped to finally reach American diplomats who could process his case for asylum. These stories rarely have happy endings; my colleague Leila Fadel chronicled one such attempt in this story.
MAK's journey was no exception. He'd paid more than $6,000 (most of it borrowed) to a Turkish smuggler, who promised him that only he and three other Iraqi refugees would be hidden in the back of the vegetable truck that would carry them to the border and transfer them to a middleman who was supposed to get them into Greece.
As is often the case, the smuggler had lied, and MAK and his companions found themselves crammed into an unventilated truck with a total of 85 refugees. About half were Iraqis, he said, noting that many of them were Kurds. The rest were Sudanese from Darfur, Somalis escaping their anarchic country, stateless Palestinians and a smattering of Pakistanis.
As they approached the border before dawn, the truck tipped onto its side when the driver tried to cross a stream. The refugees inside panicked; they were falling on top of one another and banging on the sides of the truck for the driver and the smuggler to help them escape. When the doors were opened, MAK said, the refugees poured out and ran for a nearby woodsy area before any passersby spotted this human cargo and alerted the Turkish authorities.
In the melee, many of them lost their shoes, and were forced to walk barefoot for four hours until they came to a clearing where the smuggler instructed them to wait for him until the next evening. The plan was, he would bring a new truck and they'd make a fresh attempt the next evening. The smuggler didn't return the next night, or the next.
In the meantime, MAK said, the refugees fashioned a makeshift camp in the woods. They clustered together by nationality. The Arabs, Kurds and Pakistanis were resentful of the Africans' preparedness, he said. When their stomachs began to growl, the Somalis and Sudanese pulled sandwiches from their bags. When it began to rain, the African refugees pulled out garbage bags they used for shelter. The others had not come with such provisions, so they huddled together for warmth, with the able-bodied sheltering the handful of women and children among them.
When they realized they'd been duped and the smuggler would never return for them, MAK and his three companions walked another long stretch and hailed a passing driver to take them to a bus stop so they could return to Istanbul, where they'd stashed their Iraqi passports, electronic equipment and some cash with friends. But after two nights in the woods, it was pretty hard to miss a group of bedraggled, half-starved Iraqis in the Turkish countryside. Long story short, the Turkish authorities arrested them all and they ended up in a holding facility crammed with hundreds of other would-be illegal immigrants.
What happened next is so detailed and complicated that it could fill a book. Basically, it involved Turkish interrogators, false Palestinian documents, a brief release, a recapture, and a two-day bus ride to the Iraqi border, where they were officially deported and turned over to the Kurdish peshmerga militia. They spent time in Kurdish prisons, which are notorious for abusing Arab detainees, then were released to the custody of an Arab friend from Kirkuk.
In Kirkuk, MAK was terrified insurgents would learn of his former job with the U.S. military, so he kept to himself and quietly arranged for a visa to Syria through another series of bribes and falsified documents. MAK returned to Damascus last week after this nightmarish ordeal. Now, all his options have been exhausted and he has no idea where to turn.
As my previous story about him described, he'd tried in vain several times to reach safety the legal way, through contacting his former American comrades and obtaining glowing letters of recommendation from high-ranking officers. That didn't work. He's tried to escape the illegal way, via the busy smuggling routes through Turkey. That didn't work.
Now, the man who risked his life for three years alongside American soldiers is once again stuck in Damascus, in dire need of a miracle in a place where miracles are in short supply.
