HETQ ONLINE
Iraqi Armenians are Disillusioned
Haykush Aslanyan
June 18, 2007

Two years ago Barsegh Hambardzumyan and his family emigrated from Iraq to
Armenia. They lived for a year and a half in Yerevan’s Avan district, but
paying $180 a month rent was a luxury the family couldn’t afford, and so
they moved to Echmiadzin, where they found a place for $50 a month. They
have five children, all of them in school. Sixteen-year-old Masis frequently
skips school because of the language barrier, and prefers to apprentice with
his father, as an electrician. Ten-year-old twins Minas and Maral do their
best to excel in school, and Alis and Moris, who are in middle school, are
trying with difficulty to overcome the language barrier. They believe that
one day they will be as fluent in Armenian as they are in Arabic.
Fifteen-year-old Aida Petrosyan, the daughter of Barsegh’s sister, whose
family also emigrated to Armenia from Iraq with them, said what she liked
here was the free and peaceful lifestyle. `There, it was forbidden to go out
from six at night till eight in the morning. We couldn’t even sleep. When
the bombings would stop, we would call our relatives to find out if they
were still alive, ` the girl recalled.
Her mother Arshaluys, who was visiting her brother’s family, asked us to
pass her complaints and condemnation along to the Armenian government, for
completely ignoring Iraqi Armenians.

`My brother’s family of seven and my own family of four are barely
surviving. It’s good that my brother got a job at VivaCell with the help of
the Red Cross. He is one of the few Iraqi Armenians who has gotten a job
here, and that is only because of his five children, ` said Arshaluys
Eghiazaryan.
Arshaluys explained that they and other Iraqi Armenian families living in
Armenia survive on the money they received from selling their homes and land
in Iraq. `But that will run out one day. I’ve calculated, and we spent
$1,000 in five months only for the rent and various taxes. Without a job,
how are we going to live? I don’t know, ‘ she said worriedly. She said that
they had been to several job agencies, but were always rejected with the
reply, `There aren’t enough jobs for us, and now we have to worry about
you…’ She couldn’t remember precisely which organizations gave that reply,
but she does remember that at Yerevan’s 8 th Hospital she paid 6,000 drams
for an X-ray, instead of 2,000. `That’s how it is if you don’t have a
residency passport,’ they told her.
Arshaluys is not happy with the school, either. `Every day they collect
money. How can I pay them if none of us are working? But not paying is no
good, either, since the children suffer.’ Both Barsegh Hambardzumyan and
Arshaluys Eghiazaryan are disillusioned by Armenia. `The Armenia that our
parents talked about day and night did not lived up to our expectations. We
feel ignored and uncared for here. We came here to our homeland, hoping that
we would feel like somebody here, but believe me, we felt that way more in
Iraq. If it weren’t for that damned war, we would never have left Iraq, `
said Arshaluys, who is relatively fluent in Armenian.

Barsegh’s wife Muna Hambardzumyan, who is Assyrian and understands only a
few Armenian words, told us via her husband’s sister that despite the fact
that she became sick from the fear of bombs, she would happily go back,
because at least in Iraq they didn’t have problems with food. ` Once a
month, the Iraqi government would distribute free flour, sugar, cooking oil
and soap. Plus we had jobs. And here only the UN helps, and they give us so
little food that it’s not enough to last us till the end of the month, `
Muna said. According to her, the UN will continue supporting her because of
her five children, but for people with smaller families, assistance will be
given only once a year.
Both families lived in Baghdad. Arshaluys Eghiazaryan was a manager in an
energy company, with a good salary. She said that once when Saddam Hussein
visited their office, everyone stood up `except me. He asked me if I knew
who he was. I said yes. He said, `Why don’t you stand up then?’ I replied
that my work would suffer. Saddam liked my reply. He ordered my bosses to
give me 100,000 dinars as a reward for my courageous attitude and hard work,
` she recounted, and added that they all cried when they saw on TV how
Saddam was hanged.
They are upset now, too, but for another reason – they want to go back. `A
person dies once. If we have to die of hunger in our homeland, it would be
better to die in Iraq in an explosion, ` said Arshaluys. Her brother
Barsegh, who after work receives rare orders to repair electric appliances,
wants to go to Europe instead of Iraq.
`If we had money, we could go to Syria. We could buy a Shengen visa there
and move to Europe. To find the details, I went to the UN office, where they
told me that no one handles such issues, this is your homeland, you should
stay here. It’s true, Armenia is the best country in the world, but we can’t
live here, and also, people treat us like foreigners, ` Barsegh said.