“When I woke up in the hospital, I couldn’t move,” Hashim Khadum told us at the beginning of our conversation. “But still, I tried to get out of the bed. To bend my legs. Lift my feet. Wiggle my toes. Anything. But I couldn’t.

So I just laid there, still in a daze from the narcotics, until the nurse realized I was awake. I don’t know if it took minutes or hours, but finally, she came in. And told me the news. I would be paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of my life. When I heard this, I sank into the nightmare again…”

“Its hard to explain how I felt,” he continued. “I don’t think anyone could understand unless they’ve experienced it themselves. For a while, I thought that maybe it would’ve been better if those terrorists had better aim. Than at least one of the bullets would’ve finished me off and I wouldn’t have to live like this…”

Hashim Khadum, a 38 year-old IOM beneficiary, explained to us that just 24 hours before waking up paralyzed in the hospital, he had been living a normal life, or as normal a life as possible, in war-torn Iraq. He was a husband, a father of 6 girls, and a small business owner. The family was living in Baquba, the capital of Diyala Province, where they ran a well-known butcher shop in the city center. As we spoke with him, he reminisced, “I built up that shop for years. People from all over the community, my regulars, came to me because they knew my meat was always fresh and of the best quality.”

He continued, “It was more than just a business for me. You know, we Iraqis have lived in turmoil for almost our entire lives. The Iraq-Iran war, the sanctions, this last conflict… there always seems to be trouble. My family and my business helped me ignore these ugly realities, and gave me something positive to think about.”

In 2006 however, large numbers of insurgents began to move into Hashim’s hometown from the neighboring province of Anbar, and it became increasingly difficult for him to ignore reality. Hashim’s family received anonymous hate mail, threatening them if they didn’t leave the city. “I tried not to take it too seriously,” he told us. “Baqubah was my city, you know? I grew up there.

My friends and customers never treated us differently on the basis of our religion; we never paid attention to who was Sunni or Shia.”

Times were changing quickly for Baqubah, however, and one afternoon Hashim could not ignore the threats any longer. “It was a normal working day, about four in the afternoon,” he began, “when a car with three masked men inside pulled up to my store. They parked the car right out front.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “Before I could say a word, they rolled down their windows, pulled out machine guns, and started firing,” he said. “They shot me 15 times. And as I was losing consciousness, they sped away.”

“I spent seven months in a hospital in Baghdad, and the whole time, I was worrying about my children. Asmaa, my youngest daughter, wasn’t even a year old at the time. Nora, my oldest, was only seven. I didn’t know how a cripple could provide for his family.”

Hashim’s wife and six kids moved to Baghdad the day after the shooting, in order to be close to their father in the hospital, and out of fear for their own safety. As soon as they left Baqubah however, their butcher shop was looted, their home was illegally taken over by squatters, and all of their savings had gone towards Hashim’s hospital bills.

When they arrived in Baghdad they had nothing, and the family was split up across town. No friend or family member had enough space to take all seven of them in, and Hashim’s wife, Anas, had to travel across Baghdad daily to visit both her husband and her children.

After seven months however, Hashim’s condition had thankfully stabilized enough to allow for his release from the hospital. Although he was permanently crippled, he joined his wife and daughters, and, living off the generosity of his older brother and friends in Baghdad, moved with them from one friend’s home to another.

After four years of struggling with the local Baqubah authorities, Hashim also managed to repossess, and soon after, sell his house in Baqubah. With the money and some help from his brother, Hashim decided to buy a small home in Shab city, Baghdad. “Baghdad has better medical facilities than Baqubah, and I still have to go to the doctors’ office quite often,” he explained. “Also, to be honest, after what happened, would you want to go back there?”

In the summer of 2011, Hashim was selected to receive an in-kind grant through IOM’s Program for Human Security and Stabilization (PHSS). Hashim received equipment such as refrigerators, freezers, and shelv-ing, to open a small grocery store. He was also provided with merchandise to sell.

“It was a good option for me,” he stated. “Not only because I already knew how to run a small business, but because I had all of this unused space in the basement.” He added, “Also, with the store right in my own home, I wouldn’t have to move around too much. Needless to say, getting around the streets of Baghdad in a wheelchair is impossible.”

Within a few weeks’ time, Hashim had his grocery store up and running. His 12 year-old daughter Ashwaq helped him order supplies and check the quality of shipments.

According to Hashim, “Business has been steady.” He stated, “We are slowly building our reputation in our new neighborhood, and insha’Allah with a little bit more time, we will have enough customers to open a fresh meat and fish section. We are already saving to invest in refrigerated display cases.”

As we were finishing our conversation, Hashim explained that garnering the inner strength to keep fighting has been the most difficult challenge over these past few years. “It‘s been six years since all of that happened, and I’m still learning from it,” he stated. “But running a business again has helped a lot. It keeps my mind busy, and it gives me a sense of purpose again.” He continued, “Sure, moments of weakness come up every now and then, it would be strange if they didn’t. But when they do, I think back to those years, and I remind myself that regardless of circumstances, I have to do my best to support my family. And somehow, I’ve managed to do that again.”