9-17-06, 8:22 am

BAGHDAD, 11 Sep 2006 (IRIN) - These are tough times for Mustafa Kubaissy, a 48-year-old shopkeeper in Baghdad. He has been leading a troubled life for the past three years since the US-led invasion of Iraq which ousted former president Saddam Hussein.

“Unfortunately our country has become a mess, with lack of essential items escalating prices and deteriorating security conditions. The only victims of this disaster are us, innocent people who have started to believe that life under Saddam Hussein’s dictatorial regime was much better than is now,” Kubaissy said.

He wakes up at five o’clock in the morning, washes and says his dawn prayers. These days he prefers to pray at home instead of going to his local Sunni mosque in his predominantly Shi’a neighbourhood. As a rule, he has learnt to avoid places of congregation and any crowds. He fears that one day his local mosque could be targeted by Shi’a militants.

As he takes his breakfast, Kubaissy listens to news bulletins on the television and radio to learn of the latest violence in Baghdad. He also telephones his aged parents and his sick aunt to see if they have passed the night alright. With the state of emergency extended and a curfew imposed by the government, locals sometimes have difficulties in getting health assistance during the night.

After breakfast, Kubaissy drives his two daughters – Lana and Hala – in an old rickety car to Baghdad University. He takes about an hour for a journey that would normally take ten minutes, due to heavy morning traffic in Baghdad made worse by road blocks. Lana is reading French while Hala is studying to be a dentist.

With car bombs, rocket attacks and kidnappings common in today’s Baghdad, Kubaissy is always alert and acts as a bodyguard to protect himself and his daughters.

“Everyday I have to choose a different route to avoid becoming another victim of violence,” Kubaissy said. He prefers roads which are far from government buildings where explosions normally occur on an almost daily basis.

Kubaissy said that he cannot leave his daughters alone, especially after hearing of girls who had been raped as they were returning home from college.

“I do not trust anyone now, especially because I have girls. Their honour should be protected and in this bad security situation, it is only us, the fathers, who can protect our daughters. Six months ago, Lana was hurt in an explosion at the door of her college. It is better for me to keep my eyes wide open if I want them alive,” he said.

After the stressed journey to university, Kubaissy goes to his shop to try and make money to support his family.

“I sell clothes but for nearly a year I have been having serious problems because people have not had enough money to buy new clothes like before. Poverty has increased as salaries have become low. Each day is becoming more tough to make sufficient dinars to make life decent for my wife and daughters,” he said.

“When I return back home at 10 o’clock at night, I have to juggle to see how I can pay the bills, the huge prices for petrol for my generator [electricity supply is erratic] and my vehicle, the vegetables that everyday are getting more costly and in addition how to pay the expensive rent for my house. The rent has increased 300 percent since 2003,” Kubaissy said.

The price of petrol has risen 13 times from US $0.1 per litre in 2003 to US $1.3 in 2006, especially in the capital and the price for a bottle of gas for cooking has increased 32 times from US $0.5 to $16 per 20 litre.

The increase in petrol prices notwithstanding some of the queues at petrol stations are now over two kilometers long, this in a country which is ranked third in the world in terms of oil production. Iraqis can be seen sitting in their cars for hours on end in intense heat to get their cars filled - sometimes for prices that are 10 times higher than the normal ones.

Kubaissy is also under pressure from his Shi’a neighbours to leave his home, a house which he had bought after working for 15 years.

“Most of my neighbours are Shi’a and they have changed completely towards us. They have become tougher, less educated and some of them have even started telling us that our presence here is dangerous since we are Sunnis and could bring insurgents to our neighbourhood,” he said.

“All those years before the US-led invasion of Iraq they were very friendly with us but because of the sectarian violence that has spread in our country, people have started to change, forgetting the good heart that they always had,” Kubaissy said.

Despite the difficulties, Kubaissy goes on with his life, hoping that soon his daughters would be able to go on their own to their classes, that his wife would make it to the shop unaccompanied and that he could afford to satisfy all his needs without difficulties.

“Hope is the last feeling that dies in a human being and although frustrated with what is going on in Iraq I expect one day to sit in my sofa without power cuts, with clean water and good food, even if it takes more than 10 years,” Kubaissy said. “I hope violence will not deprive me of that pleasure.”

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