One and a half million Iraqis, including many of the country's professionals, have fled to Syria, leaving behind friends and family members, neighbors, homes and jobs. One Iraqi with whom I've been in contact, a man I'll call Arkan Hamed, has interviewed a dozen of his compatriots in Damascus, almost all of them from Baghdad, about their lives in Syria and their reasons for leaving Iraq.

The refugees seldom mentioned Iraq's abysmal living conditions--severe water shortages, water-borne diseases, an hour of electricity a day. They left because of violence.

Arkan has passed their stories to me. Rana, an engineer, fled Iraq after her husband was killed.

The two teenaged students with whom Arkan talked, a young man and woman, had both escaped from kidnappers.

Khalid, who ran a computer company in Baghdad, got a threatening letter but didn't take it seriously until a grenade landed in his garden.

An Iraqi football coach lost 16 of his cousins to violence.

Jamila, a teacher, has daughters who don't wear veils, so her family received death threats.

Hashim, a lawyer, received an envelope containing a bullet and an order to leave within 24 hours.

Wameedh, a businessman, left after militiamen came to his house and killed his three nephews.

Fat'hia, a beekeeper, fled after US soldiers stormed her house at night and terrified her children. "The US troops have two faces," she explained. "One nice and another very ugly, when they are under attack."

When Iraqis enter Syria, they are given one-month tourist stamps on their passports. Then they try to get their stamps renewed for several more months. Once their time is up, they must return to Iraq. Most of them try to cross the border back into Syria after only a few minutes, but they always fear being denied entry. New Syrian legislation effective Sept. 10 makes it far more difficult now for Iraqis to enter Syria and stay.

Because Iraqi refugees are considered tourists, they cannot work legally. Many live on their savings, often money from the sale of their belongings in Iraq. Jamal worked as a professor of Arabic literature at a Baghdad university. "I had a good salary," he said, "but now I'm just eating what I brought with me from selling my house."

Abbas, a student, has a father in the Netherlands who supports his family in Syria; two other families live on money relatives send them from inside Iraq. Only two of the refugees Arkan interviewed have jobs: the football coach works with a Syrian team, and another man drives a taxi, taking passengers from Syria to Lebanon.

Because of enormous demand for housing, rents in Syria have tripled. Many of the refugees crowd together in small apartments shared by several families. Hashim, the lawyer, owned a big house in Baghdad and now lives in a two-bedroom apartment with 11 people: his wife, sons, daughters, and their spouses.

Refugees' reactions to Syria are various: "good, safe, something like living in Heaven," "confused and unstable," "good from the security perspective, but money is a problem for almost every Iraqi living here."

Syrians in turn have a wide range of reactions to Iraqi refugees. Several Syrians told Arkan, "Iraqis are our brothers and we have to host them, just like we did with the Palestinians." (About 530,000 Palestinian refugees live in Syria, many since 1948.) Nadia, a Syrian who works for a mobile phone company, said, "Everyone has a period in their life which is the worst. There should be a hand to help in such a crisis."

Other Syrians are ambivalent. Ali, a restaurant owner, said, "Sure, they are welcome, but they also bring problems, like high prices." A taxi driver confided to Arkan, "Most of us think that Iraqis are wealthy. Landlords, merchants, and taxi drivers sometimes exploit them. To be honest, the fare a Syrian would pay for this trip we're on is different from the fare an Iraqi pays. But sometimes I take Iraqis who can't pay. I know not all of them are rich."

Another taxi driver said, "I hate them. What I pay for a kilo of tomatoes now is 15 times more than it used to be."

Arkan asked the Iraqi refugees about their hopes for the future. The students emphasized completing their studies. Almas, a female student, said, "Without education, I have no future." When Abbas finishes college, he wants to join his father in the Netherlands. "I can see that Iraq will be a very bad situation, even worse than now. But still I wish to see my country blooming again."

The football coach said, "I left Iraq because Iraq is not for Iraqis any more. There is no future for us." Wameedh, the businessman, agreed. "We have no hope."

Many Iraqi refugees just want to go home. Um Sumaya, a homemaker from Diwanya, said, "I had to leave because militants killed my son. I will be sad for the rest of my life. But even if all my other children stay here in Syria, I want to return to Iraq." As for Jamila, the teacher, "I have no plans other than getting back to Iraq the moment it's safe."

"We don't need electricity or water in Iraq," said Khalid's mother. "But we need safety and we need to get back home."

--Kate Rogers Gessert of Eugene, Oregon, is a writer and teacher whose research about the effects of war in Iraq led her to become acquainted with Arkan Hamed (a pseudonym), a retired colonel in the former Iraqi army. He has lived in Syria for a year. He and Gessert collaborated on this article via e-mail.