Mustafa N, 17

My name is Mustafa Nateq. I’m 17. I left school when I was in ninth grade because of the security situation in Iraq, which is very bad. We came to Syria on June 2009.

I saw many accident like explosions and killing where I lived -- in AlDora area in Baghdad. It has been always a very danger area. One day I was doing some shopping with my Mom and suddenly she fell on the ground and I saw the blood flowing from her leg. After that we heard sounds of the shooting then saw people running. I didn’t know what to do A taxi driver stopped and took my Mom. Ambulances are not available. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking "what if that shooting was directed at me, what if my mother died?"

I will never forget that accident. I no more want to be in Iraq so that I don't have to face any of this again. That doesn't make my situation any easier as I have heart failure and the medical care is basically non-existent. All I hope for is to know my future after registering with the UNHCR as a refugee.

Muna H

The events of this story of an Iraqi girl are real.

Once upon a time, there was a little happy girl who lived in Baghdad and used to be described as the lovely beautiful. At the same time, she was an unlucky girl as she had Kidney failure since she was one.

When the girl was five, she became very curious about everything. She began making her own toys instead of buying them. She also started reading with her older sister as the latter did her homework. She also organized her bedroom at that age.

Fate, however, became the obstacle of the rest of her life by the time she was six. In one of Decembers’ cold days, and while she was playing with her sisters ‘hide and seek’, she fell on the gas heater that was sat up to heat the house. Her shouts looking for her sisters were less loud than the scream of pain as her body was lit on fire. After the fire almost ate all of her body, she was taken to the hospital with the least hope that she would survive. She left the hospital six months later with major deforms and shortage in her right leg.

A year later, she went back to school so that she brings past her dreams to reality and stops thinking about her situations and deforms. When she was in her seventh grade, fate played another, yet a worse role, in her life. Her country, Iraq, was invaded in 2003 to stop all means of living. But in spite of the chaos following the war, she didn’t lose hope. She was very happy to start studying again a year later. Unfortunately, the chaos also brought sectarian violence, killing on identity and kidnapping.

The little girl had a share of that chaos. One day and while in the school bus on her way to school, a car with two armed men stopped the bus. The girl was sitting next to her friend. The two armed men got into the car and threatened the driver that he must stop driving and moving, or else. Everybody at the bus started screaming.

The girl hold tight of her friend and closed her eyes out of fear, as if not seeing the armed men, would prevent them from seeing her. All the sudden, she felt some force is taking her friend away. Once she opened her eyes, she saw that criminal, one of the armed men, taking her friend and driving away. At the time, she felt sad, frightened, weak, and frustrated.

After that incident, the girl became depressed and sick, and no more could go to school. Her family decided to leave their home, as well as the country they were born and raised in. they went to Syria where they took their girl to psychiatric. She began feeling better. However, she couldn’t go back to school, as when she left her country, she couldn’t bring her documents that proved the grade she was in before leaving the country. Still, she was willing to home study and bring the other talents to the ground. She writes. She likes to learn languages. She reads a lot.

Right now, she is waiting for a chance, any chance to get a treatment for her leg so that she continues the road she already started- to become a doctor, and a writer at the same time.

She is looking and longing for a brighter tomorrow to be able to walk again. She never gave up. She never will. She became stronger.

This is me, and that is my story.

Muna Hassan, 16 years old.