Home to Iraq, A Different Border

Wednesday, 26 January 2011 05:34

Usir Younis was in her senior year at the University of Arizona when her father told her they would be spending the winter break traveling to Iraq, a place he had left more than 30 years ago.

Younis, 21, was born in America. Her parents, Sadoon, 64, and Ahlam, 59, are both Iraqi citizens, and moved to Tucson, Ariz. in 1979 to attend college and pursue the "American Dream."

Knowing Iraq's current conditions, her father’s decision to visit home was not an easy one to make. However, the desire to see family and friends outweighed any risks, and the chance to show his daughter his hometown seemed like the greatest benefit of all.

“It is our homeland and a big part of who we are,” Sadoon said. “I wanted her to see her roots and understand where she comes from.”

After applying for and receiving travel visas, Younis and her dad began researching flights.

“We were told by family that a lot of flights going into Iraq are unreliable and often get cancelled for no reason,” Younis said. “We knew the best option was to fly into Kuwait and then cross the border into Iraq.”

Iraq and Kuwait are two countries who have a history of violence against each other, with the Invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein in 1990 eventually leading to the Gulf War.

"I was a little nervous, knowing the history there," Younis said. "I kept thinking about what I have seen portrayed on the news and I was getting a little worried."

After landing and going through airport customs, Younis and her father got a registered taxi and headed toward the border.

Once arriving to the border just outside of Umm Qasr, a port city on the southern edge of Iraq, they were told to transfer from the taxi to a public bus that would take them through a series of four security checkpoints.

At the first checkpoint, which was designed to check bags and do pat-down searches, the men were separated from the women.

“I was kind of afraid to leave my dad because I speak Arabic but my accent is pretty obvious and I'm not completely fluent,” Younis said. “I was afraid they would ask me something I didn’t know how to answer.”

Younis was grateful to learn the questions were pretty basic and nothing she was uncomfortable with.

“They were the same types of questions you would be asked crossing the border from the U.S. into Canada,” Younis said. “Nothing was too complicated.”

After being searched, Younis and her father proceeded to the next station where guards check visas and other paperwork.

“We were told this can take anywhere from four minutes to five hours, but we were lucky and got through in about 25 minutes,” Younis said. “Then they took us to station three, which was on the Iraq side, where they checked our paperwork again and took our pictures.”

The fourth and final station is a search, similar to the initial search on the Kuwait side. The men were again separated from the women.

“Since everything on the Kuwait side had gone so smoothly, my nerves were fading," Younis said. "On the Iraq side all the guards were really hospitable; one even told me welcome home after looking at my papers."

Once across the border, just like in Kuwait, there is a two-a-half-mile stretch of road that only special security cars and taxis are allowed to travel on.

“It’s really weird because the taxis aren’t marked cars like here,” Younis said. “It just looks like random people are offering you rides and you have to trust that they are actually going to take you where you need to go.”

Younis and her father took an unmarked vehicle up the road to the parking lot where family was awaiting their arrival.

“The whole experience was pretty eye-opening,” Younis said. “I have crossed other borders before, even Canada in four different places, but those were where you go through one checkpoint, show your passport and get waived on.  It was nothing like this.”

Written by Erica Coleman