Crossing the border

I wasn’t able to have a passport to leave Iraq because I needed the permission of the army and that was impossible. This meant I couldn’t leave Iraq legally. I had to find somewhere to go and thought of my choices, I eventually picked Lebanon, it was the best for many reasons, it didn’t have a border with Iraq and Lebanon didn’t deport Iraqis (it didn’t then anyway) so I chose Lebanon as my target.

It wasn’t easy in Iraq to look for people working as smugglers or to the cross borders illegally. Iraq had strong secret police and intelligence so it’s not easy to ask people about subjects like smuggling, we even don’t speak with friends about leaving Iraq illegally.

I have only myself to rely on so I started thinking about the best way to cross the borders to get into Lebanon as my first step, after I thought I would look to find a way to get to Europe as a refugee.

I put together a simple plan with the few pieces of information that I have. I found that the best place to cross Syrian-Iraq border is near Al qa'im in Iraq, Abu kamal in Syria.

I worked out that I can get closest to the border in the daytime by getting to the closet inhabited area and then cross the border by walking at night to the opposite inhabited area at the other side of the border. In the day I will behave like I'm local resident using local transportation. That was my simple plan, it was very risky but I hadn't any other choice, I had to take a risk, life is like this, sometimes we need to take a chance so we can continue with our life.

Finally, at beginning of the summer, middle of may 1996, I started my adventure to reach Beirut illegally, no one to depend on but myself to seek a safe and better life. I took the train from Baghdad to Al qa'im at morning 4, I reached Alqa’im at evening. Alqa’im is the last city in Iraq before Syrian border. At night I started walking toward the border, I knew only my destination (Abu kamal) at the other side of the border, but I didn’t know the way or the passage. I didn’t know what is in front of me or what I’ll face at my next step; I just walked with big confidence in myself, with strong determination to cross and to achieve my goal.

My passage to cross the border between Iraq and Syria, red.

Iraq map.

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/iraq_wall_det_2003.jpg

I continued walking until I reached the border; it was composed of barbed wire, the type that looks like a cylinder. It was arranged like wall, 2 meters height and 3 meters large. Since I was skinny it was easy for me to cross it, after that I was in Syria, I continued toward Abu kamal without any problems. In the morning I reached Abu kamal, it was small. During the day I used local transportation to travel to Damascus and from there to the Lebanese border. I didn’t stop to take any rest in Syria, I just kept moving towards Lebanon.

I didn’t feel safe in Syria because of the political problems between Iraq and Syria at that time. It was hard for the Iraqis to live safely in Syria without legal permission especially if they were interred in Syria illegally. I heard many terrified stories about the torture in Syrian jails, it’s the same party who government Syria and Iraq ‘Albaath party’ therefore I felt that I must leave Syria fast as possible.

In the evening of my first day in Syria, I continued my traveling towards the Lebanese- Syrian border, I reached the last city near the border, it called Sirghaya, from there I walked toward Lebanon at night.

My passage to cross the border between Syria and Lebanon, red.

http://www.mideastweb.org/mlebanond.htm

The landscape was different from Iraq-Syrian border, there the land was plain and in Syrian-Lebanese border there were high mountains. My thoughts about crossing the borders in the mountains was simple, I thought that if there are border guards so they would either be on the summit or in the valleys because it would be too hard for them to live on the slopes. So I felt the best thing to do was to try to cross in the area between the summit and the valley.

They were very high mountains and I was tired, I hadn’t slept since I left Baghdad a day and half before and I felt even more tired after climbing in these high mountains. In the middle of the night I felt very tired and needed to rest badly. So I decided to find a good place to hide myself and to get some sleep. It was night time and dark, I wondered how I will find a good place. I thought the best place to look for was a small wood in the valley between the mountains. There would hopefully be a stream also, so I descended into the valley and it was exactly like I thought, there was small stream of water with high trees, luckily I found a good place to hide myself under some bushes for the night and also the next day, I had a little food in a sack and I drank water from the stream, it was good to rest there for a day and to have a chance to sleep in the middle of the border between Syria and Lebanon.

The next night I continued my walking towards Lebanon, it was long night and I was very tired and full of fear, in morning I found myself in Al bqa’a valley, Lebanon. There I felt safe and happy, like in Syria I used local transportation in the daytime to reach Beirut. After three days of hard traveling in constant danger and fear I had arrived at my destination. Maybe I would not have been so happy if I had realized just how long I was going to be visiting.