Region | Iraq
Hiding in his own home for more than a year
Abu Hassan took deep breaths of joy as he crossed the double-decker bridge spanning the Tigris River. The water below stunk of sewage, and the air was choked with traffic fumes. It didn't matter to Abu Hassan.
- By Tina SusmanAnd Raheem Salman, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service
- Published: 00:04 May 30, 2008
- Ali Abed Al Zahra, a Shiite, sells fish in the Dora market in Baghdad. He fled the neighbourhood but recently returned.
- Image Credit: Los Angeles Times
Baghdad: Abu Hassan took deep breaths of joy as he crossed the double-decker bridge spanning the Tigris River. The water below stunk of sewage, and the air was choked with traffic fumes. It didn't matter to Abu Hassan.
He was free after nearly a year hidden inside his house, the only place he had felt safe from the gunmen and killers who had taken over his home in the Dora neighbourhood in south Baghdad.
All he did was buy gas, turn around and go back into his house, but Abu Hassan, a Shiite Muslim living in a mainly Sunni Arab area, had taken his first tentative steps back into the world that had terrified him for so long.
After the February 2006 bombing of a Shiite mosque in Samarra, Dora quickly became one of the capital's worst killing grounds. Sunni insurgents loyal to Al Qaida in Iraq began moving in, targeting Christians and Shiites, who were minorities in the area.
An influx of US and Iraqi security forces in the past year, along with the growth of neighbourhood security groups, has changed Dora and brought the number of attacks down to about one or two a week.
Abu Hassan went back into hiding for weeks after his drive over the bridge and finally emerged fully in December. He is still terrified, so he refuses to give his full name.
Abu Hassan made the decision to hide the month his son was born: November 2006. Worried for his family's safety, he sought advice from a Lebanese friend who had survived his own country's civil war.
The friend advised him to shut himself off from the violence. His wife and mother went to work, did the shopping and updated him on the world outside because the insurgents generally targeted men.
From November 2006 until December 2007, he remained inside except for the day he drove across the bridge and the rare times he ventured into his walled garden at night.
It was a wretched life, lived behind drawn curtains and locked doors, with their weapons loaded and a lock and chain to keep the front gate secure.
Now he has returned to work.
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