Khaled and Siba, a middle-aged Christian couple, left Baghdad on tourist visas to Egypt, fully expecting to return within months. Their volatile neighborhood, Doura, had become a bloody sectarian battlefield, and some of their closest friends had been kidnapped. They needed a reprieve.

They left the keys to their spacious villa in Iraq with a trusted neighbor; most of their belongings were still inside. They rented a large home in Maadi, one of Cairo's most exclusive districts, for $500 a month. A month or so into their break, Khaled decided to return to Iraq and check on the family's air conditioning business. His wife, Siba, stayed behind in Egypt with their two children, 20-year-old Waleed and 16-year-old Mena.

During his trip home, Khaled was abducted by gunmen on his way to cash a paycheck at a bank in Baghdad. The family paid a ransom and the kidnappers released him within a week. Terrified by the incident, Khaled and Siba decided on the spot to stay in Egypt for good.

"We left everything. The house, the car, my jewelry," Siba said. "All we could think about was the children."

The abduction took place two years ago. The family is still in Cairo, where their savings is quickly dwindling and jobs are nonexistent. They gave up the house in Maadi and moved to a tiny but clean apartment in Zaitouna, a Cairo district with a growing Iraqi enclave. Their rent is about $100, and any money left over after groceries goes to keeping Mena in a private Christian high school and Waleed in medical school at Ain Shams University.

A large portrait of Christ is the only artwork on the walls of their narrow apartment, where the couple was interviewed today. Siba had just gone grocery shopping and had lugged her shopping bags up 11 flights of stairs rather than take the elevator. She's became extremely claustrophobic after being trapped in elevators during power outages in Baghdad.

"There, before the war, we were in heaven," Siba said. "Now, we're on the ground."

They receive news about Doura from family members who remain in Iraq. Siba said her husband cries on the phone with his sister. His mother died six months ago and he wasn't able to attend her funeral. The couple's relatives tell them Sunni insurgents still run the district, which is known for kidnappings, illegal checkpoints and frequent gun battles. The neighbor with their house keys has disappeared.

"For two months I've been trying to reach him," Khaled said. "Maybe he's dead, maybe he's left the country, I don't know. I'm not that worried about the keys. I worry because he's my friend."

Khaled has not found work in Cairo, so he's considering looking for a job in Sudan. He prefers to remain in Egypt but the authorities rarely grant Iraqis permits to open businesses in Cairo. Or, bureaucrats solicit bribes then fail to come through with the promised work permits. Khaled refuses to take handouts or even to consider himself a refugee.

"I'm not a refugee here in Egypt. I'm not a refugee," he said. "I left Iraq because I'm afraid for my children, but that's my country and I hope it gets better. My father and mother died in Baghdad, and I want to go back there." 

Siba takes care of the house and maintains a cheery, gracious demeanor despite her family's reversal of fortune. The year of medical school Waleed completed in Iraq didn't count in Egypt and he's had had to start from scratch. Mena is embarrassed that her name is a boy's name in Egypt -- an instant sign that she's a foreigner even though she prides herself on a flawless Egyptian accent.

"For now, I can cover rent and the school fees, but for how long?" Khaled asked. "We just say thank God we're here, we're safe."

"We're here, lost," Siba said. "We can't go home, we can't stay, we can't go abroad. I feel like we're just floating, neither here nor there."