Iraqis who fled to Syria for safety, now returning

BAGHDAD — When his six-year-old son was killed in a 2006 Baghdad gun battle, Seif Rashid decided to flee with his family to Syria, but the deadly unrest there forced him to return to Iraq last month."When I saw the lifeless body of my little Abdel Rahman I decided to leave with my wife and two girls. I could not stand my country, which was overwhelmed by hatred," Rashid said.The boy had been killed by a stray bullet in Baghdad's Adhamiyah neighbourhood.Rashid moved to Kafar Batna, on the outskirts of Damascus, because he had no work and the rent and life was cheaper.But the wave of protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that began in March once again upset their lives."There were protests, they burned public buildings, posters of Bashar al-Assad -- and there have been arrests -- the situation was untenable," Rashid said. "So, we took our bags and left again."Rashid, a 30-year-old shoe designer, mingled in Baghdad with a crowd of other returnees like him, all waiting to sign up at the National Registry office for refugees.Registration entitles displaced Iraqis like him to a government installation allowance of four million dinars ($3,400/2,380 euros) per family, to help with the costs of resettling.Many lost everything they had when they fled the violence that followed the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein and triggered an insurgency and Shiite-Sunni bloodletting.Rashid, unemployed since he fled Iraq, has been living on his savings.In Iraq, after the turmoil of the invasion and the extreme violence that began in 2004 and peaked in 2006 and 2007, neighbouring Syria quickly became the preferred escape for many Iraqis.It was next door, not very expensive, and it had open borders. Between 300,000 and one million Iraqis are estimated to have fled to Syria during the violence.-- Security is better than in Syria --In 2004, 45-year-old Yaqub Khalaf Nussayef was shot in the abdomen and legduring a settling of scores between Sunni and Shiite groups.Nussayef is a Sunni and former so

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