The Disappeared of Iraq

Waddah was still weak from a fever and barely able to stand when a guard relayed the good news: he was going home. He was hooded, bundled into the trunk of a car and driven around for an hour. This time there were no stops and no changing of vehicles. The hood was removed, the plastic bounds cut. "This is it," said one of the men, thrusting something into the breast pocket of his dishdasha and pulling him out of the trunk. "Thank God for your freedom." The car sped away before Waddah could get to his feet. He found himself just outside a well-known mosque, with 5,000 Iraqi dinars ($3.30) in his pocket. He was able to get a lift home from a passing commuter. The long ordeal was over. He was free.

With liberation come new uncertainties. In recent months Waddah and his brothers have struggled to find work in Baghdad and have returned to jihadi-infested Ramadi. But Waddah says his kidnapping has made him stronger and less fearful. Like so many other Iraqis, the family members cope with the violence surrounding them by clinging to one another. When Haseeba heard the car stop at the gate on the fateful day, she says her instinct told her it had to be Waddah. "A mother knows," she says. "So I told Mohammed: Go to the door--your brother has come home." Then Waddah walked in, and mother and son grabbed each other in a tight embrace that neither wanted to end. After several minutes, Haseeba's other sons asked her to let Waddah go so that they too could embrace him. "Never," she said. "I will never let him go."