I want a home. Send me to any country that is safe. I want justice. Our case should not be compared with the Afghan refugees in India. Iraqis should be treated as a special case because 600 Iraqis die every day," Roaa had said the morning before she moved out of the pavement located behind the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Jor Bagh.
She and another Iraqi family had been camping and protesting against the UNHCR's delay in taking up their resettlement case.
"We are 13 of us. There are only two men -- one is 61 and the other is sick -- and rest are women and children. I don't know why the UNHCR is not giving us a date for a resettlement interview. The cases of the Palestinians who came from Iraq after us have been submitted -- why not us. Why do they hate us?"
Subsisting on the Rs 4,000 given by the UNHCR every month, Roaa, a student of astronomy, has had to work as a domestic help to make ends meet.
"People expect us to bake biscuits and cakes, sell them and earn a living. It is so difficult. We were the citizens of a rich country. One that sold oil to countries in the region and we have been reduced to this. Look what America has done to Iraq."
The girl's frustration is at the UNHCR's inability to resettle them to another country. "If they can send 105 Palestinians, who are our brothers and have also come from Iraq, you send as many as you want, just send us 13 too. We have been asking them politely that if resettlement doesn't depend on being old or sick or applying earlier -- what does it depend on?" comes her impassioned plea as she fans herself with the cover of a box of pizza.
Also read: The real tragedy of Kashmir
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