Thousands were forced to flee Iraq when the sectarian violence broke out after the Iraq war began. Mothers and fathers, children and elderly Iraqis find themselves stranded in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. They cannot return to their homes for fear of death.

The following stories shed light on the situations and struggles of the Iraq war refugees.

Mustafa (Video Documentary)

After losing most of his family in the war, Mustafa is alone and single in Jordan, stuck in a seemingly endless limbo as he waits for asylum. Video produced by Lee Wang and supported by the Fledgling...

Ahmed's Story - Part 1 (Video Documentary)

A young doctor recounts how he was persecuted for being gay in Iraq and forced to flee the country. Video produced by Lee Wang and supported by the Fledgling Fund. http://vimeo.com/16067172

Ahmed's Story - Part 2 (Video Documentary)

In part two of his story, Ahmed recalls how he was arrested and tortured in a neighboring Arab country after leaving Iraq. Video produced by Lee Wang and supported by the Fledgling Fund. http://vimeo....

Abdulsattar (Video Documentary)

After five years of waiting fruitlessly for asylum, a father wonders what kind of future his children face in a country that doesn't seem to want them. Video produced by Lee Wang and supported by the...

Naseer Nouri

Naseer is a member of the Khuzaie tribe, an influential tribe with a tradition of providing assistance to its members. Naseer and his brothers worked with their father, a tribal leader in Baghdad, to...

IRAP meets with Christian refugee community in Jordan

As sectarian violence in Iraq escalated out of control, religious minorities were hit particularly hard. IRAP volunteers met with a community of Assyrian Christian refugees at a church service in Amman...

IRAP works with the University of Jordan Law School

During the winter of 2010, IRAP student leaders from Yale, Stanford, NYU and Columbia law schools traveled to Lebanon, Jordan and Syria to meet with Iraqi refugees, US and UN officials, NGOs, and Members...

Mohammed (Video Documentary)

In late 2007, armed extremists in Fallujah gave Yusra Kadhim and her husband Jamal a choice between divorce and death. A Shi'a Muslim, Yusra had thought little of marrying a Sunni in the years before...

The Ibrahims: A family struggles to survive and to hope (Video Documentary)

The Ibrahims left their home to save their children. Their son Ibrahim was shopping with his mother in an open market when a terrorist car bomb exploded. The explosive shock wave struck him in the head...

A lost generation of Iraqi youth

For the approximately one million Iraqis now taking refuge in Syria, life is often a daily battle between hope and despair. These two Iraqi shoeshine boys in Damascus are part of a lost generation of...

Suffering the violent impact of sectarian conflict, a family endures

Mixed Sunni Shi'a families became targets of sectarian violence in Iraq. Many of them fled Iraq after enduring staggering danger and loss. This family managed to find temporary shelter in a Damascus...

Zaman (Video Documentary)

Zaman talks about how she was forced to drop out of college after being targeted for being a member of a Christian minority group. Video produced by Lee Wang and supported by the Fledgling Fund. http...