DAMASCUS, Syria -- Nobody used the word "crisis" when the first wave of Iraqis fled the war and settled here. Most came with deep savings accounts and connections to well-placed Damascus businessmen.

The word didn't crop up when a second wave ushered in the Christians, whose clergy organized them into a vocal, cohesive bloc.

Nor did it come into play with the villagers who were simply absorbed into remote desert communities because their tribes straddle the Syrian-Iraqi border.

But the word definitely applies now, as shellshocked Iraqis of all backgrounds pour into Syria at the rate of nearly 1,000 a day. In fact, "crisis" may not be strong enough, as the flow of Iraqis becomes a torrent. At least 1.2 million are already here, according to the United Nations. Each has a story of terror and trauma and a need for services that is stretching Syrians' patience. Many believe the number may be higher.

"What's their future, the 2 million Iraqis here? They can't work, they have to renew their residency cards, they live in poverty. It's an explosive situation," said Lourance Kamle, 32, a Syrian relief worker whose agency focuses on Iraqi refugees. "Make a war? Fine. And what comes after? The Americans should come here and see all these poor people because that's the result of their war."

Bush administration officials have long accused Syria, which has its own population of 19 million, of not doing enough to stop al-Qaida sympathizers from slipping into Iraq. But they barely mention the far larger number of Iraqis who cross the border in the other direction. The United States remains at the bottom of the list of countries that have accepted Iraqi refugees, though the State Department has promised to admit as many as 7,000 this year.

As there are no refugee camps, Syrian schools and hospitals are overrun with Iraqis. Housing prices have soared, sowing resentment and anger among Syrians who can no longer afford to live in their neighborhoods. Iraqi refugees have turned the districts of Qudsiya, Jaramana and Sayeda Zeinab into "Little Baghdads," right down to replica restaurants, cafes and clothing stores.

U.N. aid workers who provide services to trauma victims and families with medical emergencies are overwhelmed -- nearly every Iraqi qualifies. Syrian relief groups that once catered to needy Syrians now deal almost exclusively with Iraqi victims of violence.

Just recording the arrival of so many refugees has become a herculean task. As many as 8,000 Iraqis have shown up on registration days at the U.N. refugee center. Since January, the number of registration workers has swelled from two to 30.

Every refugee has a story of desperation, and most come with voluminous files of death certificates, X-rays and medical records to support their claims.

A businessman watched as Sunni extremists gunned down a man at a gas station because he was wearing shorts. A teenager was chatting with a friend on a street corner when a carload of Shiite militants pulled up and abducted the other boy in broad daylight. A father of four was blindfolded, beaten and stuffed into the trunk of a car because insurgents suspected him of helping the Americans. A young woman still fumed over the day U.S. troops kicked down her door and carted off her brother.

Even in this refuge, the trauma of war lingers. "Not Permitted To Work" is stamped in Iraqis' passports. Regular trips to the border must be arranged to renew their residency cards. Then there is the humiliation of standing in line for hours to register for slips of paper that officially declare them homeless.

"We still feel foreign. All our relatives are here, in one house, but every day my daughter asks me when we're going back to Iraq," said Sahar Mahmoud, 30, a Sunni mother from the volatile Azamiyah district of Baghdad. "I tell her we can't go back because the Americans have occupied our country."

Each of Iraq's discordant factions has established a satellite presence in Damascus; many even boast public offices. There's the old Baath Party, the new Baath Party, the Muslim Scholars Association, the Mahdi Army, the Badr Brigade, the Islamic Army, the Chaldean and Assyrian clergies, the artists and intellectuals, and a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the leading Shiite cleric in Iraq.

And then there are the ordinary Iraqis, hundreds of thousands of them from diverse upbringings, all with the same thread of violent displacement running through their stories. The reasons they give for fleeing read like the script of a Hollywood action movie: death threats, kidnappings, car bombings, torture, gunfights, airstrikes, drive-by shootings, mortar attacks and hit squads.

"It was intolerable," said Zahra Jalil, 36, a Shiite from the Karadah neighborhood in Baghdad. "We've had so many relatives kidnapped or killed."

At one Christian nonprofit's prosthetics workshop, Syrian engineers used to create three artificial limbs a month for people who had lost an arm or a leg, usually through a medical procedure.

Now the staff struggles to create two dozen artificial limbs each month, with a 30-day waiting list. Nearly all the recipients are Iraqi refugees maimed in bombings in their homeland.

About 60 Iraqi families seek help at the center on any given day, said the Rev. Paul Suleiman, the Syrian priest who runs the group. He can scarcely open his office door before desperate Iraqis catch a glimpse of his white collar and recognize him as someone able to help.

"Our father! Our father!" they shout, vying for his attention.

The U.N. refugee agency used to register arriving refugees at its office on a tree-lined Damascus residential street. But as the numbers swelled from a few score a day to thousands, the neighbors complained. So the agency moved its registration center to a parking lot in the suburb of Duma.

Sybella Wilkes, the regional U.N. spokeswoman on refugee issues, said that so far U.N. workers have registered 32,000 Sunnis, 19,000 Shiites, 19,000 Christians and 5,500 members of other faiths. But most refugees don't register; they just cross the border and focus on making it to the next day.

"This is our biggest operation in the world, and there's no camp setting to identify people easily," she said. "They disappear into the landscape, and some of them have very real protection needs."

On a recent day, Wilkes surveyed the throngs of Iraqis waiting for the registration tents to open. Most were women, signaling another batch of female-headed households. In most cases, she explained, the men have been kidnapped, killed or imprisoned. Their distraught wives are left with few options but to flee.

"No menfolk with them. All of these will probably be vulnerable cases," Wilkes predicted.

She was right. Of the 300 or so Iraqis who lined up early that day, many turned out to be the widows of assassinated husbands, the mothers of kidnapped sons and the orphans of bombing victims. They clutched death certificates and photos of their deceased or missing relatives.

Collectively, they'd lost enough men to fill a graveyard.

"My two nephews went to work one day and they were killed, just like that, in the street," said Fatima Fadel, 45, who entered Syria a month ago. "I sold all my jewelry and all my daughter's jewelry to leave Iraq. We want stability. We want to feel safe."

An unveiled woman in a sleeveless blouse waited in the same line. Until they fled Baghdad at the end of May, Rifah Daoud and her family had been the last remaining Christians on their block in the deadly neighborhood of Dora.

Daoud, 53, said her family had held out hope that the neighborhood insurgents, the local Sunnis they call "the honorable resistance" for targeting only U.S. troops, would prevail over the al-Qaida-allied strangers who were challenging their shaky control of the area.

One day, Daoud said, the nationalist insurgents broadcast a message from the mosque promising to protect Christians and ordering them to stay put. The next day, Daoud's family received a letter that told them to vacate their home and turn the keys over to the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group for Sunni extremists. Daoud said it was clear who ran her block: al-Qaida.

"Living is better than dying, and those were the options: death or leaving," Daoud said. "Three hours later, we went to the border."

After the family had fled to Syria, neighbors called from Baghdad to let them know al-Qaida had come back, looking for the washing machine.

By Hannah Allam
Mcclatchy Newspapers