Sudanese Refugees in Iraq

There is a man in Iraq, we’ll call him Sam, we cannot call him by his real name, it’s not safe for others to know his identity. He is Sudanese, he spent twenty years in Baghdad, graduating from the University of Baghdad and working as an electrician in the city before the war. Now he works as an interpreter for the US military. He went home to Baghdad for vacation some time ago, but it was not easy disguising his job, getting to and from the base without detection from the outside world. So Baghdad is no longer his home and Sudan is a place he can’t return to. He has family in Darfur, seven murdered lay under the ground and four sisters and a brother live in villages dependent on Sam’s income. He says it makes him cry to think about Darfur, to think about death, serial rapists, children cut from arms and slaughtered, villages burned in minutes, the endless sorrow in the eyes of people ripped through and through by genocide.
Sam says he finally feels safe inside the military base. He wants to be an American, away from the bombs and the blood and desolation. If he could prove he is a citizen of Iraq, his immigration would be easier, but ever since the war his documents, like so many, have been lost. Many Iraqis have lost their birth certificates and passports, but all they need is a family member or a sheik to vouch for them and papers appear in their hands. For Sam, there is no one to vouch for him; he has no family, no sheik. He is Sudanese, an orphan in these lands. The US government will help him, but these things take so much time. So he’ll stay with the military as long as possible. He is stuck, but he is safe and his money flows out to Sudan.
I wish you could meet Sam, see him smile like sunlight and shake his hands warmly. I wish could hear him proclaim his gratitude for his wood hut, heat, food and water. I wish you could hear him say, I am happy, I am happy. I wish you could feel that truth ring out sincerely. I wish you could walk away with the bitterness I feel, with that ache and anger at a world where so many horrors occur.
Sam is not the only Sudanese working in Iraq. Near a small base in western Iraq, there is a camp of nearly a hundred Sudanese refugees living in poverty. Soldiers serving in Iraq,and I are gathering some items this holiday season to share with the Sudanese. We are not able to send comfort to the multitudes suffering in Darfur because in March the president of Sudan removed humanitarian aid groups that have provided basic life support to over 2 million displaced people in Darfur. The death toll is already between 200,000 to 400, 000 in Sudan and has the potential to reach even higher. For more information about the Darfur conflict go to:
www.savedarfur.org or to read the New York Times coverage google “Kristof Darfur”.
We can send some comfort to the Sudanese camp in Iraq and let them know someone is thinking of them, that the lives of their people are still in the hearts and minds of at least a few Americans.
Care packages with these following items will be greatly appreciated:
1.Non-perishable food, rice, canned fruits and vegetables, dried fruits, nuts, crackers, coffee, tea, etc.(please no pork items)
2.Toiletries: toothbrushes, floss, toothpaste, deodorant, lotion, eye drops, vitamins, band-aids, ointment, wet wipes, etc.
3.Blankets and warm clothes.

Please send to:
Emanuel Salazar
S-2 LEP Office
1st BCT 504 Red Devils
Korean Village Iraq
FPO AE 09371