Despite war at home, more Syrian refugees return from Iraq
Under a cold winter sun, 65-year-old Nazo Osi Ali and her two daughters pull their bulging suitcases out of the back of a blue station wagon at this town in northwest Iraq across the Tigris River from Syria. Ten months ago Nazo fled to Iraq to escape the fighting in Syria, but now she needs […]Under a cold winter sun, 65-year-old Nazo Osi Ali and her two daughters pull their bulging suitcases out of the back of a blue station wagon at this town in northwest Iraq across the Tigris River from Syria.
Ten months ago Nazo fled to Iraq to escape the fighting in Syria, but now she needs to return home to her war-ravaged country for medical reasons. "I have high blood pressure and a bad tooth and I want to see my own doctor and dentist," she says. "It is too expensive to get treatment in Iraq." She is one of a growing number of Syrian refugees ground down by the protracted exile who have made the dangerous decision to return to Syria, where five years of conflict have killed around a quarter of a million people.
