Iraqi Orphans

You can read the poverty in their small eyes wherever you see them at the cafes where they search for piecemeal jobs, or on the streets where they scavenge for soda cans to sell to local factories.

Unlike orphans in many countries in the world, most Iraqi orphans lost their parents around the same time and under horrible circumstances. In addition to their desire for compassion and care, those children need to overcome their sad memories and make a new beginning in life. Many of the orphaned children are sick, injured, and have nowhere to go. Millions of children in Iraq become orphans as a result of the continual wars, unbroken terrorism and diseases. Some of them spend their nights sleeping on pavements of the at bus stations or in empty boxes or behind scraps of wood or other material. They can’t get rid of living in streets. The war has blunted their ambitions and their childhood became a time of fear and a struggle for survival. The orphans poke about in dumps, sleep outdoors and hang around hotels, busy intersections, mosques and U.S. military installations. They are used as sex slaves and prostitutes, drug runners and spies

Orphans in Iraq didn’t lose their parents only but lost even the faith inside them because nothing is building the faith and hope in their hearts.

Iraq has been called "a nation of orphans, widows and the handicapped" because of its recent frequent wars.

Hassan Selman
hassan.selman@yahoo.com

But I love you Iraq

I am an Iraqi citizen and do not come from a wealthy family. I was also forced to change my collage to a lower one whenIraq was hell under Saddam regime.

This is the land of the Arabian Nights, and of love stories that became fables far and wide. In these stories, in the traditions of which they were born, the lover thought nothing of giving up his life for a beloved. But no one thought death would come to this land under the present circumstances. Every day I am exposed to the nightmare the Iraqi people are living through – but also to their fortitude and resilience. In Iraq we lost nearly everything along the way. Many ordinary things have lost their meanings, we became without dreams and the days that have passed are more reassuring than the ones to come. In Iraq, like almost any other country in the world, you can’t get anything done without having a certain bias in your life. Without biases, we are not really conforming to the human nature, which as far as I know, is “natural.” Everyone has a bias, sometimes we prefer to drink a certain kind of juice or eat at a certain restaurant just because “we feel good about it,” just because we feel comfortable with it. Many times we don’t really have a reasonable justification for what we’re choosing to do, and most of the time these are personal choices that probably do not really affect other people. We lost even the decision of choice in Iraq and lost the hope too. But I love my country, I am proud to be an Iraqi we have a long peaceful history; we are a truly multicultural nation; and we are, all in all, a great people. We learn from one another and, in my opinion, our lives are richer for the opportunity to share in such varied experiences.

Hassan Selman
Iraq.