IRAQI REFUGEES
Report compiled by Kathy Turner, April 2007
Nearly 4 million Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes since 2003, as a direct result of the occupation of Iraqi by the US (and allied countries including the UK and Australia).
Nearly 2 million have sought refugee in neighbouring countries. Estimates of numbers are: Syria (1 million), Jordan (700,000 to 1 million), Egypt (up to 80,000), Lebanon (40,000).
Another 2 million Iraqis have tried to find safety by fleeing to more secure areas within Iraq.
The flood of refugees is increasing. The UN estimates that up to 50,000 Iraqis flee their homes every month.
Syria and Jordan have been particularly generous in permitting entry as their own populations are small, their resources already limited, and politically the present harmony existing within their countries between Sunni, Shia and Christian may be threatened by the influx of refugees.
Yet despite the generosity of Syria and Jordan, the plight of Iraqi refugees is desperate.
Jordan:
While some few refugees arriving in Jordan are wealthy, most are in a terrible situation. They are recognised as “guests” with no rights. They quickly become “illegal immigrants” as visas are usually for only 3 months, but may be for as short as for two or three days.
Families in Jordan are often penniless. They have left homes in Iraq which they are likely never to be able to claim again, and have spent what ever savings they had.
Refugees share small expensive apartments with many others. The International Medical Corps reported that in every home they visited there were two or three families living together in no more than two rooms.
Many families do not have the support of their fathers and sons. Young men between 18 and 35 are not permitted to enter Jordan.
Most adults are not able to obtain work. Work permits are given for 1 year only, are very expensive and extremely difficult to obtain. Wages for those Iraqis who can obtain legal employment are significantly less than those for Jordanian workers. Some engage in illegal work although the dangers of such employment is high. Exploitation is rife and if illegal workers are discovered they are deported. Some women are able to eek out a minute income by selling small items (e.g. single cigarettes) on the footpaths.
Half of all the refugees are children. They have lost their homes, and their country, and have often experienced the terrors of the occupation in Iraq. They are now living in cramped conditions, without adequate safety and support to help them overcome the massive traumas of their past. Many children are kept indoors in their cramped living quarters, as parents fear discovery and deportation. Those children who can go out face bullying and discrimination on the streets.
Most Iraqi refugee children cannot attend schools. Many are not eligible for "free" education as their families do not have resident permits. Even when the children are legally able to do so, they often are not permitted to enroll, as student intakes into the already overburdened Jordanian schools have been restricted due to overcrowding. Iraqi children are also excluded from education just because their families lack money for the most basic school requirements (uniforms and books).
The UN is finidng it impossible to provide the support that is needed. The ONLY UN agency working in Jordan is the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees.
Support for refugees is in a political minefield. While there is UN money in an Iraq Trust Fund it is only available for development work supporting the present Iraqi government. As the Iraqi government (and the US government) do not recognise a humanitarian crisis, no money can be earmarked for refugees (even within Iraq).
To make matters worse there has been almost no global support for Iraqi refugees or for those countries permitting them to arrive. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that: “Donations to UNHCR's Iraq programme from the United States, European Union nations, Japan and Australia have been in free fall since the start of the US-led occupation of Iraq, despite the ever-increasing numbers of refugees fleeing the deadly violence there. From a high of US $150 million in 2003, the UNHCR budget for its Iraq programme fell to just $29 million in 2006. One quarter of that budget is allocated to meeting the needs of Iraqi refugees in neighbouring countries”.
More next time on the politics of the UNICEF (the UN body that SHOULD be supporting refugee children).
Sources:
Black, I. January 24, 2007 Rich or poor, a million Iraqi refugees strain the hospitality of Jordan, Guardian Unlimited.
International Medical Corps, April 2, 2007. Iraqi refugees face severe poverty, declining health, and lack of schooling
Raghavan, Sudarsart. February 4, 2007 War in Iraq Propelling a Massive Migration Wave Creates Tension Across the Middle East, Washington Post Foreigh Service.
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 25 March 2007 IRAQ-SYRIA: Call for aid as Iraqi refugees' misery compounds
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 22 October 2006 IRAQ-SYRIA: Three million uprooted Iraqis face "bleak future", UNHCR says Whiddett , Amy 29 Jan 2007 WER highlights hidden Iraqi refugee crisis in Jordan, World Emergency Relief (WER) - UK.
Child Rights Information Network. (2006). Jordan: Iraqi refugee children denied the right to going to school. Retrieved 25 May, 2007 from: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=10024
Electronic Iraq (2006). Iraqi refugees: critical needs remain unmet. Retrieved 25 May, 2007 from: http://electroniciraq.net/news/2716.shtml
United Nations Development Program (n.d.) Iraq Living Conditions Survey. Retrieved 25, May from http://www.iq.undp.org/ILCS/population.htm
Sex Trafficking
“While accurate statistics are hard to come by, the Women’s Freedom NGO estimates that nearly 3,500 Iraqi women have gone missing since the US-led occupation of
Iraq began in 2003 and that there is a high chance many have been traded for sex work. It says 25 percent of these women have been trafficked abroad since the start of 2006, many unaware of their fate.” (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
26 October 2006)
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=61903
Picking up the Pieces
Mar 7, 2007
By Cathy Breen
Amman, Jordan
After a brief visit to the Iraq embassy this morning, I made my way by foot to the old city district. Two Iraqi friends walking behind me were deep in conversation. I was looking downward as the sidewalk was uneven when I spied two discarded jigsaw puzzle pieces. For some reason I was tempted to pick one up. The image seemed appropriate, so many puzzle pieces we struggle to connect.
The new “G” passport that is now being required from all Iraqis is a piece of the puzzle. A piece that is adding to their misery and despair. At least 90 Shiite pilgrims en route to the holy shrine in Kerbala were killed today when two people walking in their midst blew themselves up. Other bombs brought the death toll to over 120. The day before a car bomb killed 30 in the historical book market section of Baghdad, an area I visited on more than one occasion lingering over books that spoke of Iraq’s intellectual wealth. Now “pieces of flesh and remains of books were scattered everywhere” said one witness at the scene.
One of the gentlemen I was with at the Iraq embassy this morning escaped the violence of Baghdad about a month ago when he came to Amman with his wife and three children (ages 12, 10 and 7yrs.). He hopes to get his long-awaited immigration visa to the U.S., to join his mother, four brothers and two sisters living in Detroit. They all have U.S. citizenship. He has been told by the U.S. embassy here in Amman that his visa will be forthcoming in about 8 weeks when his security check clears. To that I say, fair play.
But here comes the catch. The visa will be useless to them as neither he nor his wife and children have the new “G” passports. Given other Iraqi families I’ve met who find themselves in a similar predicament, I predict that this family will be in Amman for many months to come. There is a good chance that their children will not be able to attend school.
Ironically one of the articles in today’s newspaper speaks about the out-of-school Iraqi children in Jordan. “U.N. figures place between 750,000 to 1 million Iraqis in the Kingdom; this means Jordan could be hosting 172,000 to 230,000 children who should be in school.” A representative from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) states that Iraqi families who are in contact with them “place education for their children as a top priority.”….”But in a country that has a clear lack of resources, unemployment and poverty rates that linger around 15 percent and burgeoning urban centres, providing education to thousands of extra children poses an added burden on the government.” An Iraqi father is quoted “If the [Jordan] government announced that all [Iraqi] children can go to school and men could work, there will be four million persons at the border by tomorrow.” (Linda Hindi, The Jordan Times, 3/6/07)
In addition to the passport rule change in the United States, the government of Iraq is a piece of the puzzle. Something recoils in me when I hear embassy people in Amman critically remark “The Iraq government needs to deliver to their people.” It smacks of blame placing. It presumes that Iraq has a functional government, that everything is moving along smoothly. In a recent article in The Jordan Times a journalist wrote: “As the people who talked the United States into the Iraq war try to talk their way out of the blame for the mess they made, one dominant theme has emerged: blame the Iraqis. Our intentions were good; we did our best to help; but the Iraqis….would prefer to kill one another to seizing the freedom we brought them. It’s not our fault that it turned out so badly.” (Gwynne Dyer 3.4.07)
In a recent meeting with an official at the Iraqi embassy in Amman we were told that in about a week’s time they would be taking applications in emergency cases for the new “G” passport. These would then be sent by courier to Baghdad, the only place currently where the passports are being produced. The cost would be approximately $20., and it would take about two weeks time. However, we were also told that, given the millions of Iraqis inside and outside of Iraq in need of the new “G” passport, the process of servicing everyone will take months if not years. We understand that there are only two machines available to produce the new electronically coded passport, machines made by a British company that has now pulled out. Today at the Iraq embassy we were told that the system is not yet in place, that it will take time.
The UNHCR is another piece of the puzzle as only refugees who have been referred by the UNHCR are eligible. Both here in Jordan as well as in Syria, hundreds of Iraqis are approaching the UNHCR offices daily to procure the new Refugee document. In Amman the UNHCR protection services were closed this week. Overwhelmed and often unable to even answer their phones, they need to review case loads and carry out training of their staff.
The US government is a piece of the puzzle. Our administration has announced that we will accept one-third of the 20,000 refugees who will be screened and approved this year by the UNHCR. Sen. Ted Kennedy has stated that “we have a moral responsibility to do all that we can…to prevent this crisis from getting worse…Our invasion of Iraq led to this crisis.” But the process of accepting refugees into the states is so difficult and lengthy, that it seems doubtful that even 3,500 Iraqis will be processed by the end of this year.
The “G:” passport problem is not going to go away time soon. Neither is the Iraq refugee crisis. How can we begin to pick up some of the pieces?
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