When Hate Lives Next Door

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Not far from al-Zibari's mosque, Sahar Nema says that while she and her family are not exactly comfortable in their cramped sleeping arrangements, they are spared the sectarian nightmares that haunted them in their previous home. In the days ahead, the family will have to confront difficult choices--where to look for jobs, where to send the kids to school, what to do about the home they abandoned. They may ultimately try to swap homes with one of the Sunni families being forced out of al-Shulla by the influx of Shi'ites. "I don't care if the house we get here is smaller than the one we left," Nema says. The only certainty: she will never return to her old home. To be twice a victim of Iraq's sectarian hatreds is quite enough.