Shia woman returns to the home in Baghdad she had fled a year earlier

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/7179657.stm



"I decided to go back to Iraq, because I needed to know what had happened to my house and to the two mini-supermarkets we ran from the building.

The need to know was even more urgent than the fear I had of going back.

I approached (the Sunni district of) al-Amariya from the adjacent Shia district which is now controlled by the Mehdi army.

...

I knocked at the door and a woman answered. I introduced myself as the owner of the house. I told her I didn't want anything, I just wanted to have a look at the place and see my furniture.

She reluctantly let me in.

The husband came home. I found out he now runs my two shops and that he is making very good money out of them

I saw that most of the furniture we had stored in one room before we left was being used by the family - and that they were not taking good care of it. The house was not clean or tidy.

I felt terribly sad. It had been so difficult to get hold of these things during the war with Iran and during the hard years of sanctions and here they were being treated carelessly by other people.

"Why are you using my furniture? Why didn't you bring your own things?" I asked the woman.

She replied that they were forced to leave their house without their belongings, so they had had no choice.

After a short while the husband came home. I found out he now runs my two shops and that he is making very good money out of them.

"What do you want from us?" he yelled at me. I told him I came just to see my home and my belongings.

He shouted his reply.

"Shias forced us to leave our house, so it's our right to have a Shia's house in return."

I asked him to give me rent from the shops and the house. I explained that I live in Syria and I don't have any income.

He refused point blank. He said he had bought the two shops from the Sunnis who had lived in the house before he came.