by Katherine
Regarding Hil’s most recent post, and particularly her link to George Packer’s article on Iraqi refugees: there is one specific person who is asking for help getting out of Iraq right now.
On November 15, even before the Thanksgiving bombing and the ensuing retaliation against Sunni neighborhoods, Zeyad of Healing Iraq wrote a detailed post on a kidnapping at Baghdad’s university, which abruptly switched from reporting the news to this request:
Very few students turned up for school this morning. My brother Nabil stayed home. I have been looking into solutions to get him out of Iraq as soon as possible because I don’t want him to suddenly end up any moment as a tattered corpse on the outskirts of Sadr City with drill holes in his head just because of what his ID says. I would be forever in debt to anyone who can assist me with this.
In response, one of his readers apparently generously hired an immigration lawyer in New Zealand and offered to sponsor Nabil as a student. I don’t really know the details. I don’t think they can reveal them online, so my knowledge of New Zealand comes mainly from Lord of the Rings DVDs, which didn’t have any special features on immigration law. I also don’t know whether this is the option the family will end up pursuing, but for now it seems to be only one available, and the other day Nabil wrote the following:
I live in fear everyday, I wake up in fear, and I sleep the night in fear too, few days ago I stopped going to college, because the road to college is very dangerous, fake police check-points are everywhere and at any moment they can stop me and ask for my ID and once they see that I’m a Sunni they would have me killed or kidnapped or tortured, because they can figure it out from my name and my address (my district is a sunni district), and the 2nd reason why I stopped going to college, is that in Monday (20th Nov. 2006) two police patrols attacked our college building, and opened fire on the outer gate of the college for nearly 15 minutes, then they stopped after they injured some guards of the college, and they left immediatly without giving excuses for what they did.
The last two months I have experienced a lot of things that I never imagend that I will experience in my life. About two weeks ago, my district was attacked by mortar missiles, we had missiles falling everywhere in the district, destroying houses and killing innocent people, the district was attacked with about 75 missiles in 5 days, one of the missiles fell on the side-walk just two yards away from the outer door of my house, it was shocking and very horrible, about a month ago, gunmen killed a woman who was a hair styler and owns a shop near my house for no reason, they just stopped her in the street when she was closing her shop and killed her, and left her corpse laying on the street, and truly I don’t want to end up like that.
After living 3 horrible years in Iraq and witnessing all what I’ve witnessed, I realized that I can’t live in this country anymore, I can’t live in a country where some gunmen prevent me from going to school, where corrupted policemen will kill me just because of my religion or what’s written on my ID, where religion bigots will have me killed just because I wear jeans, or shorts or because I shave my beard everyday in the morning.
The only thing that I want is to finish my studies, and to work and to create a good life and to be a good man who can be helpful and successful and to live the rest of my life in peace.
New Zealand is a great country, I think it’s the best place for me to study and work in, and that I have great friends there whom they offored to support me make my dream happen…As soon as I can have residency Visa to NewZealand.
Please, help me make my dream, Please Save my Life!.
Nabil
22 November 2006If you’re interested in helping me escaping Iraq..you can do that, by donating money, there is a paypal button on the top of side bar on the right.
Thanks to anyone who would help me.
The paypal link goes to his brother’s account. Whether it’s to New Zealand or somewhere else, getting out of Iraq costs money, and I would certainly trust Zeyad and his family to use it wisely. (continued)