By DPA
Baghdad : Perhaps being an interpreter has always been a safe job for people around the world, but for Iraqis it is quite different.
Not only do Iraqis working as interpreters for the US forces face daily ordeals, but militants also look at them as “pro-American collaborators” which equals to calling them enemy.
Usually it is hard to differentiate between an interpreter and a soldier as they all wear military outfits and cover their faces with black masks and sunglasses.
“Our work is quite risky as attacks against the US soldiers target us too,” said 29-year-old Ahmed, who has been working for the US military in Iraq since 2003.
“It has been my very first job after I graduated from the faculty of languages at Baghdad University,” Ahmed told DPA.
Dozens of Iraqi interpreters, he added, were killed in attacks, while militants targeted many others after working hours.
Hundreds of Iraqi interpreters working with US troops and foreign organisations for high salaries keep their jobs confidential.
Ahmed’s family lives a luxurious life in the Jordanian capital Amman whereas he spends his nights alone with the US army inside the Green Zone.
“We could no longer be on the move from one neighbourhood to another to avoid danger; so I decided to send them away,” Ahmed noted.
Sometimes Ahmed’s job is quite beneficial to his fellow Iraqis.
“I remember once the US forces stormed a rural area north of Baghdad and arrested dozens of Iraqis including people who looked like innocent civilians,” he recalled.
“After the Americans listened to their statements, which I translated, they found out they had nothing to do with any acts of violence, so I suggested they would be set free and this was what happened,” he said.
Meanwhile, the British government has been highly criticized for not supporting the Iraqi interpreters after the withdrawal of its troops from Basra.
Last August, Britain’s Times newspaper reported that Whitehall officials ignored appeals by high-ranking army officers for asylum to be given to 91 interpreters and their families.
BBC described the interpreters as marked men who “face a horrific death”.