University of Southern California | Annenberg School for Communication

This photo essay is by Jessica Malter, a journalist doing communications work for the International Rescue Committee in Amman, Jordan.

Since the war in Iraq began, approximately two million Iraqis have fled the violence that has engulfed their country, most ending up in Syria and Jordan. They have not left Iraq en masse, but family by family. They don't live in refugee camps, but crowded into cheap, dilapidated apartments in the poor neighborhoods of Damascus and Amman. Together though they make up the third largest refugee population in the world and have created one of the most pressing humanitarian crisis of the day. Despite this, we have heard very little about their plight and their stories have remained very much untold. Here are just a few.

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The day I met Khaled he had just received a text message saying that this month's cash assistance distribution was going to be delayed. He said when he read it, it felt like a knife going through his heart. Khaled, like an increasing number of Iraqi refugees, is destitute. Unable to work legally in Jordan and out of savings, he, his wife and their six children are completely dependent on the 180 Jordanian dinars (about US$250) they receive every month from an international aid organization. It's not nearly enough to support his family. His rent alone is 100 dinars a month and he owes 127 dinars to the grocer down the street, without whose kindness he would be unable to feed his family. Khaled, who was a train conductor in Iraq, has tried to work on construction sites in Amman on three different occasions. But each time inspectors showed up checking papers, and he had no choice but to run away.

The stress and anxiety of life as a refugee has taken a toll on his health. Khaled suffers from high blood pressure and a skin condition and shared his X-Rays to prove it. Like many Iraqis in Jordan, Khaled and his family fled Baghdad in 2005 after being threatened by a militia group. He said he was targeted for his tenuous association with America - he and his eldest daughter, Imam, had recently returned from the United States where she was getting medical treatment for a facial deformity.

Khaled's children are bullied and teased by other kids in the neighborhood so like thousands of other Iraqi children in Jordan they spend most of their time inside. Bored at home, the younger children are looking forward to returning to school in the fall. Imam, though, will not be so lucky. Her father says he cannot send her to school because the children are just too cruel to her. She will stay at home and help her mother care for her younger siblings.

Imam's appearance has made her a prisoner in her own home. In spite of everything, she is a cheerful, friendly and bright young woman. During her two months in the United States, she started learning English, which she was eager to practice with me. She told me that people were very kind to her in America and that she had many friends there-- not like in Jordan--and that she hopes she can go back one day to see them again.

Her father though is not optimistic about this prospect and worries incessantly about what will become of his eldest daughter. Khaled has applied for resettlement and is desperate to get Imam back to Virginia for more medical treatment. But it has been 18 months and with no progress, he has little hope that they will be granted resettlement in the United States. Despite all his hardship, Khaled is not a bitter man. He is not angry at the United States for waging war on his country or angry with the Jordanians for not doing more to help him and other Iraqi refugees. What he feels is despair and frustration that after two years his situation has only gotten worse and he sees no way out. He doesn't want a lot, he says, just enough to be able to provide for his family like he once did.

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Masa and her family fled to Jordan after she and her then 10-year-old daughter were physically attacked in Iraq. She suspects they were attacked because they are Christians. In their hurry to get out of the county, they left everything behind. Today the family of four lives in a small, dark and decaying one-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Amman. There are no windows, poor sanitation and peeling walls. Masa cries as she talks about how horrible it is for her children to live in such an unhealthy and depressing environment. But in debt and with no income, it is all they can afford. She and her family survive on food they get from a church, aid from international organizations and financial help from her brother-in-law.

Masa's mental anguish cannot be missed; it is evident in her sad eyes and forlorn expression. She is distraught over how the war in Iraq has affected her children. She says she is losing them and that her family is disintegrating before her eyes. They barely talk any more, each having withdrawn into their own misery. An organization has been helping her cover the school fees for her 12-year-old daughter, but she thinks that might end, in which case she will have to keep her at home. Her daughter, she says, is devastated by the possibility of having to drop out of school.

Masa is more worried though about her 15-year-old son who has been suffering from severe emotional problems since arriving n Jordan. She shows me the diagnosis from the psychiatrist; he suffers from severe depression, is agitated and nervous, a loner who exhibits aggressive behavior to himself and others and talks frequently about death. The doctor's recommendation is regular psychiatric treatment and resettlement in a safe place as soon as possible, which would provide the stability he needs for recovery. Masa had been taking her son for counseling, but had to stop as she could no longer afford the transportation fees to and from the clinic. The family applied for resettlement, but it has been two years and nothing has happened. Masa has not given up hope; she keeps her phone close by at all times and everyday prays for that call that could save her son.

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While improved security in some parts of Iraq has been widely reported, the situation is still extremely fragile and volatile. I have yet to meet an Iraqi refugee who finds the idea of returning in the foreseeable future a legitimate option. For those that faced threats and violence in Iraq, the fear is genuine and runs deep. Regardless of how bad things may be for them in Jordan, returning to Iraq would be worse. This became clear to me when I met Hassan.

Hassan pays the equivalent of $20 a month to live in a shack constructed on the top of a building in the heart of downtown Amman. He has no running water or bathroom and a single gas burner is the extent of his kitchen. He fled Iraq after being repeatedly threatened because he had worked for the Baathist Party. He tried working illegally, but was caught by the police who gave him a stern warning. Now he keeps a very low profile, only leaving the roof when absolutely necessary. He says his two years in Jordan have been like being in prison. Even so, he says he is not even considering going back to Iraq, "At least I am alive here," he says. "If I go back they will kill me."

Many of the Iraqis I have spoken with in Jordan express a similar sentiment: while they feel safer here, they do not feel free. Their lives today are nothing they would have ever imagined for themselves, and they are powerless to change it. They live in limbo, having little idea of what their futures' hold and no good options. Almost all see resettlement as the only way they will regain the freedom to truly live, but that would require the United States, European and other countries to dramatically increase the number of Iraqis they are willing to take in. The International Rescue Committee recommends that the United States commit to a major effort to increase Iraqi admissions from 12,000 to at least 30,000 per year for the next four years. Speaking as an American, it seems the least we can do.