A life spent waiting
Current World News Comments (0)
Face creased with concern, the former Iraqi interpreter sits on a cheap-looking sofa in a rented flat in Amman as his two young children play on the floor and his pregnant wife rests in the bedroom.
“We are worried about what is going to happen to us. The [asylum] process takes too long. I am shocked,” the man said. 
In April, he and his family boarded a plane to Jordan in the belief that they would fly on to Britain within weeks to escape a life of fear and intimidation in Iraq because of his previous job as an interpreter for the British military.
More than seven weeks later, they, along with about 30 other former interpreters and their dependents, are still waiting for news.
“We received a lot of promises,” said the man who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons.
“I did not expect to go to the UK directly but maybe after six weeks or two months. If I had known that it would take a long time then I would not have come. My wife is pregnant. It is expensive here,” he said of Amman.
“If by the end of August we are still waiting we will quit from the programme and try to go somewhere else. We can’t go back to Iraq. My city is too dangerous.”
The stranded interpreters are trying to travel to Britain through a programme set up in cooperation with the UN’s refugee agency, the UNHCR. It requires them to gain refugee status in Jordan before travelling to Britain, a process that takes time and offers no guarantees.
“We have been told that some maybe rejected,” said a second former interpreter who lives with his wife and 10-month-old daughter in the same apartment bloc as the first.
This man is one of a lucky handful of candidates, however, who were interviewed by a team from the Home Office who travelled to Amman last month. There is a chance he and his small family could receive the green light to travel to Britain as early as July. The others must continue to wait.
“I would like to go to the UK to save my life,” the 30-year-old said, sitting in his rented flat with three other former interpreters who also live in the bloc.
“If I go back to Iraq, I will be killed,” he said, looking down at his daughter who was gurgling without a care in the world as she crawled across the floor.
The interpreters have been living in hiding ever since they were forced to quit their work because of death threats from Shia militia groups in southern Iraq who view anyone who works for the British military as a traitor or a spy.
Many believe that their lives are in even greater danger now, after accepting the offer to travel to Jordan in a bid to make it to Britain. Rejection and being forced to return to Iraq would be a death sentence, they say.
“People back home think that we are already in London,” said a third interpreter, 28, one of the few men who is single and travelling alone.
admin @ June 14, 2008