“She was two, when it happened,” Zaina gestured to her young daughter, Saba, who was playing with a newborn lamb in its pen. “I don’t think she remembers the day her father was killed…”

“I do, of course. How could I forget? But you must understand how difficult it is for me to talk about it,” Zaina paused before continuing. “Luckily I have these sheep to raise, and a business to run.” She got up to refill the feeder. “Not only do they support Saba and I financially, but tending to them gives me something to do, something to focus on. When I work with the sheep, I don’t have to think about the terrible things that have happened in the past…”

Zaina Al-Hamdani is a 27-year old widow from Al Hussain, a farming community in the western governorate of Anbar. She and her husband, Rami, were married in 2004, and Zaina gave birth to Saba one year later. Rami supported the young family by selling sheep from his father’s farm at the local marketplace; Zaina stayed home raising the animals and caring for their newborn daughter.

They were living comfortably this way until one evening in 2007, when Zaina heard a knock at the front door. Expecting to find her husband returning home from work, she was shocked to instead see a police officer standing in her yard.

He told her the life-shattering news: a car bomb had exploded near the marketplace. Rami, along with 6 other merchants, had been killed. “I didn’t believe him at first. ‘This can’t be real,’ I thought. But then, Saba started wailing in my arms: crying, screaming, uncontrollably. It was like she understood what had happened… That’s when I knew it wasn’t a dream.”

As a 21-year-old widow, Zaina didn’t know what to do. She explained, “I was so young, and absolutely devastated. I had no idea what it meant to be a widow, I barely knew what it meant to be a wife or a mother… all I knew was that I was worried about Saba – worried about how I would support her, and worried about her growing up without a father.”

Luckily, Zaina’s in-laws allowed her to stay in the house where she and Rami had been living together on his parents’ property. However, without the income that Rami had been earning at the market, Zaina and Saba had to rely on savings and meagre handouts from family. “Pretty soon, the savings were gone and charity alone could not sustain us,” Zaina recalls.

IOM was informed of Zaina’s case in September 2008. As a single parent and widow, she qualified for assistance under IOM’s Program for Human Security and Stabilization. Because of her experience with farm animals, she was awarded an in-kind grant of 15 sheep to raise, fatten, and sell for profit.

“There was a space next to my house that I converted into a pen,” Zaina told us as she took out a large pair of shears and began trimming the wool of a pregnant ewe. She continued, “Technically speaking, I already knew what I was doing. I had been helping my family, and then Rami’s family, raise livestock. The emotions, really, were the most difficult thing.”

“The sheep reminded me so much of my family. Growing up on a big farm with my parents, then starting a family with Rami… But now, it’s just me and Saba. At first, this change was so hard. I would cry at night, knowing that Rami wouldn’t be there in the morning to take the sheep to market. After a while however, I began finding solace, not pain, in caring for the sheep. I soon began to take pride in bringing my livestock to the market and selling them. They are no longer just bittersweet reminders of the family I lost, reminders of the past; but now they are also reminders of the future.”

She continued, “they remind me that I am strong; I have my daughter, and now I have a business to sustain us. Focusing on the sheep gives me something to pour my love and attention into and they allow me to provide for myself and my daughter.”

“These days, I bring in about $600 per month. I spend $250 on farming supplies, and the other $350 I spend on my daughter and my home. I have managed to even save some and am looking forward to buying a few more ewes at the end of Ramadan. The more sheep I have, the more I can breed, and the more profit I can make in the future.”

Zaina’s daughter, Saba, had left the lambs and was now standing shyly by listening intently in on the conversation. Zaina told us, “Although she does not remember her father, I can see his spirit in her. She is at the top of her class in school, and helps me around the house after finishing her schoolwork. I know he would be proud of both of us…”