The latest report by the Iraqi Red Crescent says that they estimate between 25,000-28,000 Iraqis have returned to Iraq from Baghdad since September. The Iraqi government claimed over 40,000 returned in just October. A UN survey from November of 110 families returning, said that 46% came back because they were out of money, 25% said they were coming back because of tighter visa rules by Syria, 14% said because of improved security. The UN also said that 28,000 Iraqis were newly displaced in October alone.
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There’s No Place Like … Iraq?
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Even so, the revival of some communities is practically a miracle. Lt. Col. Kevin MacWatters commands the 1st Brigade, 7th Cavalry Regiment, which controls the town of Sab al-Bor, 10 miles northwest of Baghdad. In the fall of 2006, Al Qaeda in Iraq launched a major offensive there, provoking massive retaliation from Shiite militias. By December, MacWatters says, the town's population had plunged from more than 70,000 to barely 3,000. Thanks largely to MacWatters and his troops, the place is quiet now. As of late last week, no one had fired a mortar at the town in four months, and no one had been killed since this September. MacWatters says the population has bounced back to 23,000, and he hears that approximately 50 more families return every day. "When I heard the situation was getting better here, I decided to move back," says Naseer Abd, 27. "I missed my house, my street." Unlike most returnees, he found his home locked and untouched. Now he only wishes the place had reliable water and electric service.
Dawood wishes he dared even visit his old house. His father, a shoemaker, spent seven years building it, much of it with his own hands—and often with little Dawood at his side. Dawood inherited the place when his father died of heart trouble in 2003. Now he hears conflicting rumors about the place. In one version, thieves broke in and stripped the house. In another, it was destroyed by fire. Sometimes his 11-year-old daughter asks to go back. She misses her old bedroom and her friends. "All your friends have left," Dawood tells her. "We can't go back." She wept when she saw him again for the first time. "She told me to promise not to leave again, but until now I don't promise," says Dawood. "We don't know what life will bring."
© 2007
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