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Online Articles -> U.N. revises refugee guidelines to show Iraq safer (5/15/2009 7:52:42 PM)
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U.N. revises refugee guidelines to show Iraq safer
By Laura MacInnis
Reuters
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 9:43 AM
GENEVA (Reuters) - Violence in Iraq has waned enough for the United Nations to stop recommending that most Iraqis get automatic refugee status abroad, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said on Tuesday.
Some of the 1.5 million Iraqis living outside their country, which descended into sectarianism after U.S.-led forces invaded in 2003, should now be able to return safely, UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said.
"The three areas of Iraq -- north, central and south -- all show varying degrees of improved security," he told a news briefing in Geneva, announcing a revision to the U.N. refugee agency's guidelines for host-country governments.
International assistance is still required to help asylum-seekers from Iraq's central core, including the capital Baghdad, where violence, conflict and abuse go on, Redmond said.
But he said conditions in the north and south, including Al-Anbar province, had "improved considerably," prompting the new guidance that he described as "a normal procedure that the UNHCR carries out as the situation warrants."
The Geneva-based agency previously said all Iraqis from the central and southern governorates -- with some exceptions, like those who committed war crimes -- should be considered refugees.
Most of the 1.5 million Iraqis living abroad are in Syria and Jordan, though many have also sought shelter in Lebanon, Egypt, and further afield. Last year, more than 40,000 Iraqi asylum seekers lodged applications for refugee status in the West.
INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEWS URGED
Under the new UNHCR guidelines, governments reviewing asylum requests from Iraqis from the semi-autonomous northern region and the south are urged to assess whether claimants are at direct risk because of their religious, ethnic or professional affiliation, or their sexual orientation.
"We are now saying rather than blanket consideration, these people can be given individual interviews to determine their status," Redmond said, saying that specific groups of people in those regions may still require protection.
These include public officials, U.N. and other aid workers, journalists, human rights activists, homosexuals, and people seen to be affiliated with opposing armed groups, political factions, multinational forces and foreign companies, he said.
Some Iraqis sheltering abroad may also begin to go back to the calmer regions, but should not be forcibly repatriated or encouraged to leave all at once, according to the UNHCR.
"The improvement of the situation in Iraq does not yet constitute fundamental change sufficient to promote or encourage massive returns to Iraq," Redmond said, underlining that Iraqis who have refugee status abroad should be allowed to retain it.
"Return should be considered strictly on an individual basis after due consideration is given to the security situation in the area of return, whether the person can return to the place of origin, and if there is the necessary support structure for normal reintegration," he said.
The UNHCR is also telling governments to avoid repatriating Iraqis to parts of the country they did not originate from, and to exercise caution with the return of people to southern areas.
Iraqis from the provinces of Baghdad, Diyala, Kirkuk, Nineveh which includes the city of Mosul, and Salahuddin are not being encouraged to return home yet.
"UNHCR believes that all asylum-seekers from these areas continue to need international protection and should not be sent back there," Redmond said.
(Editing by Stephanie Nebehay)
source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/05/AR2009050501331.html
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