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Personal Stories

The Hidden Costs of War

Family portrait

When we look at the cost of war, we often measure it in terms of dollars and cents or lives lost. We are not always aware of the long-term effects on families and on society as a whole. When we look at Iraq today, we tend to see the destruction of infrastructure: hospitals and schools, electricity and water. We don't often see behind the walls, what the people have suffered and continue to suffer.

Recently, a friend asked us to accompany him on a visit to a family he knows. We entered a gate next to a small shop and went up some back stairs. At the top of the stairs we found a small alcove that held a minuscule kitchen and bathroom. Down a hall was a single room, where we were greeted enthusiastically and with great warmth by Moushe and Shatha and their seven children. The family lives, sleeps, eats, and plays in a space that measures 11 by 16 feet.

Moushe's tale

Moushe and Milad

Moushe is in his forties. Like most men his age in Iraq, he was conscripted to fight in the Iran/Iraq war in the 1980s. Moushe spent nine years as a soldier; three of those years he was a prisoner in Iran.

The mark of war is not easily discernible on Moushe. He has all of his limbs and there are no visible scars. He is warm and welcoming when you visit, offering you coffee and a sweet, holding one of his two-year-old twins in his lap, encouraging his only son to speak to the foreigners in English. Moushe shares his life and his family with you. But as he gives you a cup of coffee or offers his hand in farewell, you cannot help noticing that his hands tremble constantly.   

Moushe is a barber by trade. Barbers may not get rich, but they can support a family. A barber with constant tremors cannot hope to do this. Moushe, like thousands of Iraqi soldiers imprisoned in Iran, returned to his family with invisible scars of torture. The Iraqi government gave all returning prisoners a small sum of money and then forgot them. The government went on to other wars; the people continued to endure years of deprivation during sanctions.

Shatha and her children

Shatha

Shatha is a petite, gentle woman. Her home, though very small, is clean and neat. Drawings by the children decorate the walls. Neighborhood children are welcomed as if they were her own.

Shatha smiles easily at her family and guests and shares her joy and pride in her family. Much of her married life has been spent raising her children alone, as her husband was obliged to go to war. Now, she is also the principal wage earner for this large family, making what she can by cleaning and ironing for other people. 

Her smile does not show the grief of the years separated from her husband, or of the loss of three brothers who were killed in the Iran-Iraq war. Nor does she show evident signs of anguish over the death of her sister, killed last month in Mosul -lost to the violence that has shaken this country under foreign occupation.

Shanel, the oldest, has had to leave school.		Marian and Violet with the twins Milanda and Amanda

Milad, the only son, in the family kitchen and with a neighbor.

Little Maureen will most likely have to leave school prematurely in order to work.

The children greet us with bright, shining faces and smiles. Their names are melodic:  Milanda, Amanda, Maureen, Milad, Violet, Marina and Shanel. As we meet each one, we hear their ages and cannot fail to notice the gap between the oldest and second oldest. These were the years that the young mother Shatha spent alone with her small child, wondering if her husband would return from his Iranian imprisonment. 

The oldest daughter has not been able to finish school because she must help support the family. The other girls in this family, with only one son, will more than likely share the fate of their oldest sister: leaving school early to become wage earners.

Families bear the brunt of war

For all the hardship this family knows and has known, they are more fortunate than many families in Iraq. Moushe and Shatha finished their educations before the wars, sanctions, and Saddam's rule changed the realities in Iraq. The family is whole and happy. Their father came back from the war when many other men did not. Other wives and children were left alone to survive as best they could. For many, this means that even small children are on the streets peddling to help provide money for the family. 

For many families, the growing poverty in Iraq has resulted in the loss of even a meager home such as the one Shatha and Moushe make for their children. Today, many families live on the streets or in abandoned or bombed-out buildings.

A less fortunate family in the Al Huda camp.

Poverty is not limited to Iraq ; in fact it is on the rise throughout the world. But Iraq 's impoverished families have dealt with more than twenty years of wars, and the scars of war are deep and long-lasting, affecting both the present and future generations.

- Mary Trotochaud and Rick McDowell

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