(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-10-14 09:13

DAMASCUS, Syria - A dozen Iraqi men -- Sunnis and Shiites alike -- sat around a table in a Damascus restaurant, singing, drinking and sharing a camaraderie all but impossible in the sectarian killing fields back home.

"We can certainly choose our religious beliefs. But we have to realize the inevitable -- that eventually we have to share everything in order to live in peace," said Salam Mohammed, a 34-year-old Sunni from Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.

An Iraqi man holds bread in his shop in Jaramana southern Damascus in this March 2007 file photo. More than 2 million Iraqis have fled their homeland to escape Sunni-Shiite reprisal killings. [Agencies]

More than 2 million Iraqis have fled their homeland to escape Sunni-Shiite reprisal killings.

Once they reach the safety of Syria and other countries, many Iraqis shed sectarian bitterness and seek support from fellow countrymen regardless of religious sect.

Back in Baghdad, "being Sunni or Shiite is an issue that a lot depends on -- including your life," said Saad Kadhem, a Shiite from the Iraqi capital. "The situation is different when you are out, because people see things differently. But inside Iraq, people are still blinded by hatred and grudges they carry against one another."

The phenomenon is not unique to Iraqis. A decade ago in the Balkans, Serbs and Muslims would kill each other on the front lines around Sarajevo but hang out together in exile in Germany or Austria -- far removed from the hatreds back home.

In Syria, Jordan and other countries with large Iraqi refugee communities, Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds mingle and socialize -- rekindling a bond of nationhood that the violence back home threatens to destroy.

"The situation in Iraq didn't affect us, Iraqis living in Jordan," said Leila Adnan, a Sunni Muslim Iraqi housewife who fled to Jordan in 2003. "We socialize together, we exchange invitations to wedding parties and other social events."

She said Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites in Jordan still marry across the sectarian divide.

"There are mixed weddings, almost every week," she said, adding that she attended one last week between a Sunni woman and a Shiite man from a prominent family.

"Nobody at the party felt it was strange, or questioned their marriage," she said.

In Damascus, the home of Sundus al-Dulaimi, a 50-year-old Sunni from Anbar Province, reflects the spirit which Iraqis seem to have kept alive outside their ravaged country.

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