"I don't know how to act or live in a safe community," said Fekeiki, who moved to the United States on a student visa in August 2006. "That is not real life for me, it's like I'm in a dream and it's taking too long."

He is a world away from his life in Baghdad. Last summer, after receiving multiple death threats, he escaped to Amman, Jordan, to wait for his U.S. visa, leaving his family and homeland. Fekeiki believes he was targeted because he is a journalist and was working for the Washington Post.

"I always tell people that if I leave Iraq I will be dead and I won't be alive until I go back. That is how I feel now," he said.

Part of the exodus
Fekeiki's is just one of many stories of families split apart by the continuing violence in Iraq.

About 2 million Iraqis, roughly 8 percent of the pre-war population, have fled the country, according to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. Most have gone to Jordan and Syria, the only neighboring countries that opened their borders to Iraqi refugees.

Jordan, a country with a population of about 6 million, is struggling to accommodate an estimated 750,000 Iraqi refugees. Syria has an estimated 1 million Iraqi refugees in a country of 19 million.

As many as 50,000 Iraqis continue to flee the sectarian violence in the country each month, with more unable to find the resources or opportunity to leave, according to UNHCR's Iraq Support Unit operations manager Andrew Harper.

The economies and infrastructures of Jordan and Syria are overburdened by the overflow, prompting new regulations at the borders.

"The welcome mat is not so pristine as it was," Harper said. "Neighboring countries have been extremely generous ... but there is an increasing impatience as to how long the Iraqi population will remain."

Syria still has an open door policy, but new arrivals are given 15-day visas and then have to apply for a longer stay. Refugees applying for extensions of visas are told they have to leave Syria for one month before reapplying.

Security concerns prompted Jordan to block entry to 18-to-35-year-old males after three Iraqis blew themselves up at hotels in Amman in 2005. Fears that sectarian violence will spill into surrounding countries along with refugees is a concern throughout the region.

Iraqis that do meet the qualifications to enter Jordan must have a new type of passport that has only been available since 2006 and is expensive to obtain.

The United States, citing increased homeland security screening, has taken in only 466 Iraqi refugees since the war began in 2003 but announced in February plans to resettle 7,000 this year. Iraqis like Fekeiki living in the country on student visas only have permission to stay for the duration of their studies.

The U.S. offer was welcomed by the United Nations, and humanitarian groups say it is a good start, but that it is not enough.

The life of a refugee
The threat of deportation weighs heavily on refugees who have made it over the Iraqi border, though deportations have not been carried out on a large scale yet.

In Amman, while Fekeiki waited for several months for his U.S. visa, he was comforted by familiar faces and friends from Iraq that had also sought refuge in Jordan from the violence.

But most of Fekeiki's friends would not go outside of their apartments or homes because they, like many Iraqis, were in Jordan illegally.

"They were afraid that if they went out in the streets they would be caught and deported," he said.

In Jordan, refugees are not allowed to hold jobs or send their children to school. They are in a limbo of sorts, trying to find ways to survive day to day. For many that means taking menial jobs under the table if they can get them, and leaving old professions behind.

Friends still living in Amman tell Fekeiki the situation is getting worse, and months of living off savings is taking its toll.

Syria allows Iraqi refugees to work and send their children to school, as well as allowing them access to public services such as health care. But Syria is not a wealthy country and resources were limited from the onset.

"Prices in the country are increasing ... we sympathize, but it has not been easy," said Ahmed Salkini, spokesman for the Syrian Embassy. "This is definitely causing a grumbling among Syrian people, especially because they had no fault in what happened."

Jordan is better off economically than Syria and initially attracted more affluent refugees that moved into homes and invested in businesses. But there are legions of poor refugees in Amman now, too, eking out an insecure existence in decrepit apartments and alleys.

Despite the challenges awaiting them in Jordan, Syria or elsewhere, thousands feel they have no choice.

Robert Carey, vice president of resettlement for the International Rescue Committee, met with families in Amman on a recent trip to assess the situation and plan for an aid operation there.

"Many had received death threats and many were in danger because they were associated with U.S. military, contractors, or they were working with nonprofits," Carey said.

Intellectuals, doctors and artists were also systematically targeted in Iraq because of their professions or affiliations.

Fekeiki was chased by unknown assailants in a car three times before he finally made the decision to leave within days, without telling his family about the threats to avoid worrying them.

The process of leaving itself can be dangerous too, reported Kristele Younes of Refugees International from northern Iraq.

"They have to hide the fact that they are leaving, they can't take anything with them," Younes said. "When your enemies know you are leaving they will kill you."

International response
The United Nations plans an international conference next month to discuss the problem of Iraqi refugees and those displaced within the country.

The UNHCR has called for $60 million from nations for a global resettlement program, more than double what was spent in 2006. The United States expects to contribute $18 million to assist with resettlement and humanitarian aid.

Resettlement, said UNHCR's Harper, is not a solution by itself.

"Resettlement is for those most in need with little likelihood of returning," he said. "We cannot lose sight that we have to find a solution for the other 99 percent."

Delivering assistance to countries like Jordan and Syria is vital, according to Harper, so that countries do not feel abandoned and can accept more refugees.

With violence continuing in Iraq, the prospects of Iraqi refugees returning remain slim.

"Any refugee I ever talk to always wants to return home but they want to do so in safety and security," the International Rescue Committee's Carey said. "I do think that for a lot of [Iraqi refugees] it is hard for them to envision that possibility now."

For Fekeiki, never returning seems almost unthinkable and he is determined to try. He holds onto the idea of one day being able to go back and work as a journalist. "It is my one ray of hope," he said.

-- By Talea Miller, Online NewsHour

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