PROVIDENCE — Atheer Kiriacos Jajou still bears scars from beatings he endured in Iraqi jails during Saddam Hussein’s regime. He was jailed three times: the first when he sought sick days after he was exposed to chemicals at a weapons arsenal where he worked. He was never charged with a crime.

Five years ago, Jajou and his wife, Baydaa Elshwaie, and their two children fled Iraq for Turkey.

Yesterday the family became the first Iraqi refugees to be resettled in Rhode Island since the 1990s.

Sponsored by the International Institute of Rhode Island, they are also among fewer than 2,000 Iraqis who have been allowed into the country since March, when the Bush administration reversed a policy that had blocked nearly all Iraqis from entering since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

“We left because we were running away from Saddam,” said Jajou, through an interpreter who translated from Arabic. “For Christians, it was very difficult.”

Jajou said, “Twenty five years in Iraq … it’s twenty-five years that I lost. I am happy to be here, because I can build a future for my family.”

In fact, said Jajou, he would like to find a job as quickly as possible.

At an apartment arranged through the International Institute, Andy Atheer, who is 10, and his 12-year-old sister, Alison, explored their new surroundings and peered from a window as an ice cream truck jingled past.

Their mother, Baydaa Elshwaie said the children have never attended school because it was not possible in either Iraq or Turkey.

“But when we heard that we were coming here,” said Elshwaie, “we bought small book bags, to motivate the children.” She added, “I thank God we are in a safe place.”

THE FAMILY ARRIVED at T.F. Green Airport yesterday at 12:30 p.m., where they were greeted by Baha Sadr, the International Institute’s director of refugee resettlement, and Keith Cooper, the Institute’s skills coordinator.

According to Sadr, as Catholics in a largely Muslim country, the family qualified for refugee status because as members of a religious minority, they would be vulnerable to persecution.

Asked why the family is being resettled here, Sadr said, “Rhode Island has been hospitable to all ethnicities,” a climate that may ease their transition into American life. Sadr also said a small number of Iraqi refugees were resettled here a decade ago.

“We are advocating to get more Iraqis to come to Rhode Island,” said Sadr. “Their families really want to bring family members that are in Syria, Jordan, Turkey, or inside Iraq itself. We think Rhode Island would be a good place for them.”

Ben Sanders, spokesman for the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants in Washington, D.C., said that so far, only about 1,500 Iraqis have been admitted this year, though the Bush administration said it would allow some 7,000 in by the end of this month.

“Through the Patriot Act and the Real ID Act, together they created a really high bar for admission” into the United States, said Sanders. “If you’ve given any kind of support to something that could vaguely be described as a terrorist organization or a resistance group — even if the United States is funding it — it can be counted as a terrorist organization because they were acting against the lawful government of Iraq.

“Agencies such as ours are making a concerted effort to get that changed,” said Sanders, “but it’s kind of slow going.”

During interviews at the Institute and at their new apartment in the Valley neighborhood of Providence, Jajou said they lived in constant fear under Saddam.

Trained at a technical institute in Baghdad, Jajou first worked as a technician at a weapons arsenal.

At that munitions facility, Jajou was exposed to chemicals “and was not feeling well,” he said through interpreter Ntaganda Ntiziharwa, a Burundi refugee who works at the Institute (and who served in Iraq with the Rhode Island National Guard 103rd Field Artillery).

After Jajou asked for some sick days, Saddam’s “martyrs,” as they are known, came to Jajou’s home at night and took him away. That first time, he spent 20 days in jail.

The second time, Jajou spent three months behind bars after seeking help from a foreign doctor.

“The Saddam regime knew I was talking to a foreign doctor,” and that my wife’s family had escaped to Holland,” said Jajou. “The regime put these two things together, and they thought, ‘Maybe’s he’s going to defect,’ ” he said.

The third time, he was taken away for seven months.

Every day his jailers interrogated him, Jajou said, and the beatings continued.

“Seven months without watching or seeing my wife or children … I was really scared. When you are there, you are always thinking about death and life. You don’t know whether you are going to get out. You don’t know when death is going to come. That’s what’s on your mind.”

While Jajou remained in jail, his wife, then five-months pregnant, suffered a miscarriage.

Meanwhile, she said, she received frequent visits from Saddam’s men, who threatened to kill her husband if she did not pay “rashua” (bribes).

“Sometimes they came and ask for money, and yes, I had to pay,” she said.

In late 2002, the family escaped.

Jajou sent his wife and children ahead of him, to Jordan, paying their way with “rashua,” a way of life under Saddam. Meanwhile, Jajou walked from Mosul in northern Iraq, to Turkey, a six-day journey.

Three months later, the family reunited in Istanbul.

Inside Turkey, things were nearly as difficult. Jajou performed under-the-table jobs — whatever and wherever he could get them. The family lived in one room.

They spent five years waiting to get refugee status, which grants them permanent residency in this country.

Once they obtained that status, he said, the family’s flight to the United States was canceled twice. The Turkish government “took $4,000” in what essentially was bribe money for “processing” their passports, he said.

“I want to tell my story,” said Jajou, “because other Iraqis may need help. These people are struggling. There is no life there.”

With that, Jajou and his family sat down to their first meal — Spanish rice, chicken and beans — in the apartment they will now call home, and in a place where he hopes to build a future.

kziner@projo.com