BAGHDAD —
Iraq,
once synonymous with conflict and chaos, is becoming a land of opportunity for
Lebanese job-seekers fleeing a deep economic crisis back home.
اضافة اعلان
Akram Johari is one of thousands who fled
Lebanon's tumbling currency and skyrocketing poverty rates.
Last year, he packed his bags and boarded a
plane from
Beirut to Baghdad, using social media to search for opportunities.
"I didn't have enough time to look for
a job in the Gulf," the 42-year-old said, explaining why he eschewed the
more traditional path for those seeking economic opportunities in the region.
With its relative proximity and visas on
arrival for Lebanese, the Iraqi capital seemed a good option.
"I had to take quick action, and so I
came to
Baghdad and began searching for work on Instagram," Johari said,
speaking in a restaurant he has run for about a month.
Lebanon is grappling with an unprecedented
financial crisis that the World Bank says is of a scale usually associated with
war.
Beirut's crisis, driven by years of endemic
corruption, has seen Lebanon's currency lose more than 90 percent of its value
against the dollar.
Lebanon's 675,000-pound monthly minimum wage
now fetches around $30 on the black market, and about 80 percent of the
population now lives in poverty, according to the UN.
When he left Beirut, Johari was earning the
equivalent of about $100 per month. In Iraq, he earns enough to support his
family back home, he said.
Thousands flock to Iraq
More than 20,000 Lebanese citizens arrived
in Iraq between June 2021 and February 2022, excluding pilgrims visiting the
Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, according to the Iraqi authorities.
Lebanon's ambassador in Baghdad, Ali Habhab,
said that movement from Lebanon to Iraq "has recently multiplied".
There are more than 900 Lebanese businesses
now operating in Iraq, the majority of them in the restaurant trade, tourism
and health, Habhab said.
In particular, there have been "dozens
of Lebanese doctors who offer their services" in Iraqi hospitals, he said.
Iraq's decades of conflict — from the
Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, to the US-led invasion of 2003 and subsequent
sectarian conflict, and on to the rise of the Islamic State group in 2014 —
means that Baghdad might appear to be an unlikely magnet for those seeking to
build a new life.
But since the country declared victory over
IS in 2017, Iraq has slowly begun to recover its stability.
Today, streets in Baghdad that once
witnessed atrocities are buzzing with shops lining main thoroughfares and cafes
open late into the night.
According to Iraqi economic expert Ali Al-Rawi,
many Lebanese companies came to Iraq because they "know the investment
environment well", while many foreign companies from other countries
"fear investing" because of its violent past.
"There is a lot of space for Lebanese
enterprises in the Iraqi economy," he said.
But Iraqis themselves have seen their fair
share of economic hardship.
In a country where 90 percent of revenues
come from oil sales, roughly a third of the population lives in poverty,
according to the
World Bank.
In 2019, nationwide protests erupted across
Iraq, driven by anger over rampant corruption, the absence of basic services
and unemployment — similar factors behind protests in Lebanon that erupted
around the same time.
Lebanese firms flourish
Lebanon was once a prime destination for
medical tourism, as Iraqis flocked to better equipped medical centers in Beirut
and other cities.
But, as with other sectors,
Lebanon's
economic crisis has hit healthcare.
The Beirut Eye & ENT Specialist Hospital
was once popular with Iraqi patients, but an official at the hospital, Michael
Cherfan, said that "many doctors have left Lebanon".
The hospital responded to the crisis in the
way many Lebanese have — by opening a branch in Baghdad, sparing Iraqis the
trip to Beirut.
"Our doctors come on a rotating
basis," Cherfan said. "Every week, one or two doctors come and do
consultations and surgeries, earn some money and then return to Lebanon, which
helps offset some of their losses."
For Johari, while the money he earns in Iraq
supports his family, it comes with a bitter taste. He flies home once a month,
but he misses his family.
"It saddens me a lot that I can't watch
my two-month-old daughter grow up", he said.
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