RE: 100,000 fleeing Iraq every month!
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RE: 100,000 fleeing Iraq every month! - 7/13/2007 1:26:14 PM
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Lion of Babylon
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quote:
ORIGINAL: zimzim
Hi LOB. I think this subject is not interesting for many ppl. Only us are posting for this subject. 
See zimbo. People do care but we just had a quite period on the forum. Judging by the number of posts today, we are over it now. 
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RE: 100,000 fleeing Iraq every month! - 7/14/2007 10:30:57 PM
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Lion of Babylon
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UNHCR Doubles Funding Goal to Help Refugees
Boosts Commitment to $123 Million, Appeals for more International Aid
UNHCR News Release
GENEVA, July 12 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency on Thursday announced it is more than doubling its budget this year for hundreds of thousands of uprooted Iraqis to US$123 million and called on donors to help it meet this target.
"The needs of Iraqi refugees and internally displaced are enormous and growing by the day," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. "So, too, is the strain on host governments and communities struggling to cope with the massive numbers of Iraqis who have fled their homes. UNHCR's revised appeal seeks to increase support to both the uprooted and those hosting them, but it must also be part of a much broader international effort because the problem is so huge."
The revised UNHCR appeal issued Thursday says the massive and sustained displacement of Iraqis in the face of extreme violence continues unabated, with a significant impact on the surrounding region. More than 4 million Iraqis have been uprooted – some during the pre-2003 regime of Saddam Hussein and hundreds of thousands of others since then. About 2 million Iraqis are in Syria and Jordan alone, and another 2 million are displaced internally.
Calling it the largest population movement in the Middle East since Palestinians were displaced following the creation of Israel in 1948, the appeal notes that at least one in seven Iraqis is uprooted, with 2,000 more estimated to be fleeing their homes daily. Since early 2006, an estimated 822,000 Iraqis have fled their homes to other areas inside the country.
The US$123 million revised budget includes an earlier UNHCR appeal in January for US$60 million, an amount already surpassed by donors. So far, UNHCR has received US$67 million for its Iraq operations. Another US$10 million is pledged or in the pipeline.
UNHCR has already registered 150,000 Iraqis in neighbouring states. Some 9,000 of the most vulnerable Iraqis have been referred to third countries for resettlement, including some 8,000 to the United States. More than 20 percent of those resettlement cases are classified as women at risk.
Throughout the region, about 60,000 displaced Iraqi children are attending school. Some 10,000 Iraqis a month are utilizing UNHCR-supported health care facilities, with another 10,000 being provided with regular food support. UNHCR's emergency stockpiles have a current capacity to support 150,000 beneficiaries.
In Iraq, UNHCR's Protection and Assistance Centres are now covering all of the country's governorates. The agency has seven offices in Iraq. Emergency life-saving assistance is being provided to Palestinian refugees in Baghdad, as well as to the increasing numbers who are fleeing the capital to border camps.
But the appeal notes much more needs to be done.
"UNHCR registration data and surveys indicate that at least 10 percent of Iraqi displaced families are female-headed and over 30 percent of the total population have special needs," the document says. "Thousands of Iraqis approaching UNHCR are the victims of torture, sexual and gender-based violence, car bombings or other violent attacks and are in urgent need of medical care. The majority of Iraqi children are not attending school."
A recent survey in Damascus indicates that 76 percent of refugee children are not in school, many of them for two or three years. The same survey found that 80 percent of Iraqi refugees depended on fixed savings or charity and that 34 percent had insufficient funds to last even a month.
UNHCR's updated appeal will focus on activities both inside Iraq and in surrounding countries. In Iraq, the agency will boost its provision of aid supplies for up to 100,000 vulnerable people, including emergency shelter in a growing number of makeshift camps housing increasing numbers of displaced people.
It will also promote the establishment of inter-agency humanitarian aid depots to support the delivery of emergency assistance and provide life-saving help to the most vulnerable refugees. This will include rental subsidies for Palestinian refugees in Baghdad and aid to those stranded at the border with Syria. The agency will maintain an aid stockpile for up to 300,000 beneficiaries, including 100,000 inside Iraq.
Outside Iraq, UNHCR will focus on five areas of assistance – education, health, food, social and legal counselling and shelter. In education, it is supporting the construction of 10 schools and the rehabilitation of 100 others. It is also working closely with UNICEF to increase the number of Iraqi children in schools in the region from 60,000 to 200,000 by the end of the 2007-08 school year.In the health sector, the agency will increase the number of refugee medical referrals from 10,000 a month to 20,000 by the end of the year. With the World Food Programme, it will expand food distribution for vulnerable families and in schools, and promote supplementary feeding programmes for those most in need. By the end of this year, 20,000 Iraqis will be referred for resettlement.
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RE: 100,000 fleeing Iraq every month! - 7/17/2007 6:41:33 AM
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FlyByBaghdad
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Dear Lion of Babylon, I think it is wishfull thinking that the UNHCR would be able to cope with the number of people fleeing the country, me in person I had a very bad experience with these guys, I think it is time that the people who caused this mess to take some responsiblity for their actions, by accepting more and more refugees, let's say 400 thousends for the USA,  and the list goes on, ZimZim very glad to hear that you got your papers, wish all the best and I hope that all Iraqis one day will be united under one goal and one country, long live Iraq and Long live the Unity of the Iraqi people
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RE: 100,000 fleeing Iraq every month! - 7/17/2007 11:29:38 PM
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Lion of Babylon
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quote:
me in person I had a very bad experience with these guys
FlyBy bro. What was the experience?
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RE: 100,000 fleeing Iraq every month! - 7/19/2007 1:15:22 AM
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Lion of Babylon
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German Policy Fails to Account for Continuing Violence, Persecution in Iraq
(Washington, DC, July, 2007) – Germany should immediately stop revoking the refugee status of Iraqi refugees and should reconsider the cases of more than 18,000 Iraqis who have been stripped of their refugee status, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to German authorities.
Since November 2003, the German Federal Office for Refugees and Migration has sent letters to about 20,000 Iraqi refugees informing them that Germany intends to revoke their status. The letters say that the political situation in Iraq has fundamentally changed since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, and that there is no indication that the new Iraqi government will persecute them. Since that time, the authorities have revoked asylum status for more than 18,000 Iraqi refugees.
“Saddam Hussein’s fall from power hardly means that it is now safe for Iraqi refugees to go home,” said Bill Frelick, refugee policy director at Human Rights Watch. “The German government should recognize that persecution and generalized violence continue despite a change of government in Baghdad.”
According to the 1951 Refugee Convention, refugee status can be terminated when the circumstances that caused a person to be a refugee have ceased to exist, but the changes that occur must be both fundamental and durable. Threats may also come from new sources, including persecutors who are not acting on behalf of a government, such as the sectarian militias that have sprung up in Iraq since the US-led invasion.
“It is simply too early to revoke the refugee status of Iraqis granted asylum in Germany, especially when the situation in Iraq remains so volatile,” said Frelick. “Germany should help relieve the burden of the Iraqi refugee crisis on countries like Jordan and Syria, not add to the problem by stripping Iraqis of their refugee status.”
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Germany’s mass revocation notices are a cause for great alarm among the country’s population of 73,500 Iraqi exiles, about half of whom are recognized refugees. Once refugee status is revoked, these Iraqi refugees fear that they will be deported back to a country mired in violence and instability.
German authorities insist that revocation of refugee status does not imply an automatic deportation to Iraq, and at present such deportations are not occurring. Nevertheless, revoking refugee status still has significant consequences.
Under the German government’s plan, Iraqis stripped of their refugee status will be given Duldung (tolerated) status, a short-term category that leaves beneficiaries vulnerable to deportation at any time. In addition, those under Duldung status may lose their jobs and be subject to restrictions on their movements within Germany. These new restrictions on work and movement could place undue pressure on Iraqi refugees to return to an unstable Iraq.
In its letter to the German authorities, Human Rights Watch said that automatic revocation of refugee status is not in compliance with 1951 UN Refugee Convention standards on cessation of refugee status and that the alternative of Duldung status for Iraqi refugees is inconsistent with the common EU rules on refugee status, known as the “Qualification Directive,” which lays out the minimum standards to qualify as a refugee or a person otherwise in need of international protection.
In addition, Human Rights Watch is especially concerned about the effect of such revocations on countries in the Middle East that are struggling with large populations of Iraqi refugees. UNHCR estimates that in addition to the 1.9 million people displaced within Iraq, up to 2 million are now outside their country, mostly in Jordan and Syria.
“Germany’s revocation of refugee status sends the wrong message to Iraq’s neighbors, where Iraqi refugees have fragile legal status and deportations and push-backs at the border are happening,” said Frelick.
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RE: 100,000 fleeing Iraq every month! - 7/21/2007 1:48:46 AM
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Lion of Babylon
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Dudes. A story about a passport!
The Joy of a G Passport
Ahmed's Voided Passport Creates Anxiety, Redemption
By the end of March, the three-month stamps the Ahmed family had received on their passports when entering Syria were nearing expiration. Saif Ahmed braced himself for more paperwork and bureaucracy and set out for the Syrian Residence Office to seek an extension. After filling out all the proper forms and handing over the family's five passports, Ahmed was shocked when the policeman handed him back his own with the words: "Your government has declared in that all 'M' passports are null and void. Consult your embassy for an answer and come tomorrow to collect the other four passports."
When Ahmed went to the embassy, he found dozens of Iraqis crowding around an open window, all asking the same question: "What do we do?" The man at the front desk had the same answer: "Either take a laisse passé and return to Iraq and apply for a new G passport or wait for a team to come from Baghdad and issue new passports."
Both options sounded bad. The first could mean death and the second could require waiting indefinitely until the team came from Baghdad, which would mean bearing the possible consequences of violating Syrian laws by staying illegally.
"Come back next month," came a shout from the window, encouraging the concerned crowd to begin slowly dispersing.
Ahmed had been fortunate to run into a few old friends, and the group gathered outside the embassy gates to talk.
Ghazi and Ghazael had been mid-rank Baathists from his old neighborhood of al-Bunuk in Rusafa district. They told him they both had received threats in an envelope containing one bullet, which was enough to convince them to leave their home behind and flee to Syria. He also saw Adel Youssif, a former colleague at the university where both had taught translation. Youssif, a Christian, spoke with great sadness as he told Ahmed: "I received a threat in al-Dora, where my entire family lived for years, telling me to either convert to Islam or leave."
Youssif considered himself lucky because he had found someone willing to buy his house and all the furniture before he left for Syria. But since he'd been in Damascus, he'd been unable to get a teaching job. Damascus University had offered him a position, but he hadn't been approved by the security checks. "They are now in their 4th months of checking and no response yet from them," he said.
Both men shared the same problem--their "M" passport. Both decided to risk violating Syrian law by waiting for Baghdad to send a team to process the paperwork in Damascus, rather than risk their lives returning home to get a new one. While chatting outside the embassy, shouts began to interrupt their talk. "My purse! My mobile! My money!" Everyone in the crowd started checking their valuables, since the group had apparently just been worked over by a crew of organized pickpockets. The gang of thieves made the large crowds outside the Baghdad embassy a daily target, not minding that the ragtag Iraqis possessed little more than what they carried in their pockets.
Suspiciously eyeing nearby strangers, Ahmed and Youssif wrapped up their conversation and headed home to begin the uncomfortable wait for the team to come from Baghdad. Ahmed's three-month visa had expired by then, so he worried what might happen if he was asked to show his papers. For more than a month he anxiously awaited word, until the day came when he heard the embassy had a team arrive from Baghdad to process the new passports. Each person had to submit notarized documents of nationality and a nationality certificate (the second proves the bearer is of Iraqi-Ottoman origin), plus three photos with a white background, and extra photocopies of everything--including the original passport. Ahmed completed all the paperwork and presented it to the top official, who looked over everything carefully and told him to come back in a month. In a month's time, Ahmed returned again to the embassy. His anticipation grew with each name called off the list, the well of anxiety building until the sound of his name broke the spell, raining joy and relief upon him. He could barely contain himself to a walk as he rushed home to show the family his newest prized possession. His new G passport made it possible to stay in Damascus, but Ahmed liked it for another reason. Its blank pages looked like a clean slate--one that had erased the red seal his Jordanian brethren had used when they refused his family entry, a stamp of shame Ahmed would prefer to forget.
Sadoun al-Janabi is an Iraqi journalist. The names of the subjects of this story have been changed for their own protection.
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RE: 100,000 fleeing Iraq every month! - 7/22/2007 6:34:18 AM
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Lion of Babylon
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See report attached.
Red Crescent Aids Sudanese Refugees in IraqConditions Said to Improve in Anbar Camp After Sudanese Refugees Complain
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RE: 100,000 fleeing Iraq every month! - 7/22/2007 9:28:00 AM
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Lion of Babylon
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Sorry zimbo. Harry is the only one with the magic powers to make this work. Been trying to post a pic into the thread for months but I cant get the hang of it. I give up!! 
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RE: 100,000 fleeing Iraq every month! - 7/22/2007 10:37:02 PM
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Lion of Babylon
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Denmark ends secret Iraq airlift
Denmark has completed the evacuation of some 200 Iraqis who it feared faced danger for their association with Danish troops in southern Iraq.
A final group of 80 Iraqis has arrived in Denmark, joining 120 already there. The airlift of the Iraqis, including translators for Danish troops, had so far been kept secret for security reasons, a Danish official said. Denmark is expected to withdraw its group of 480 troops from Basra in southern Iraq next month. Militants fighting US-led forces regard as traitors any Iraqis who work with foreign troops. The family members of these Iraqis have also been targeted in militant attacks.
Heated debate
Most of the 200 evacuated Iraqis are expected to be offered asylum in Denmark. Military spokesman Lt-Cdr Nils Markussen said the initiative had come from Danish soldiers serving in Iraq.
"The signal we want to send is that we of course take care of our employees if the business they have been doing for us is putting them into danger," Cdr Markussen said.
Cdr Markussen said the evacuation had been kept low profile "in order not to target them further". He also said he believed other countries with troops in Iraq had carried out similar evacuations. A heated public debate preceded Denmark's decision to arrange the evacuation, with the government eventually reaching a deal with the anti-immigrant Danish People's Party.
Millions displaced
The US and UK have been reluctant to take in large numbers of Iraqi refugees. The British government said on Friday that it was committed to looking after its troops' Iraqi aides, estimated to number about 700, but asylum applications would be considered on an individual basis. The US has taken fewer than 1,000 Iraqi refugees although it has pledged to take in about 7,000 more from this year. Among European countries, the greatest number of Iraqi refugees have gone to Sweden, which does not have any troops in Iraq. Millions of Iraqis have either been displaced internally or fled to neighbouring nations since the US-led invasion.
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RE: 100,000 fleeing Iraq every month! - 7/24/2007 1:33:03 AM
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Lion of Babylon
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UNHCR Cites Progress in Jordan, Syria
Calls on International Community to Do More to Lighten Refugee Burden
DAMASCUS, 23 July 2007 (IRIN) - Deputy Head of UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) Craig Johnstone said at the end of his first trip to Jordan and Syria that progress had been made on the plight of Iraqi refugees.
Johnstone told IRIN on 22 July he had “very good meetings” with government officials from the two countries.
He hoped a change in Jordanian law would allow refugees better access to education and medical facilities. “Within the next week or two will issue some decree that will ameliorate the situation for the refugees,” he said.
At present, a large number of Iraqi refugees have been refused residency in Jordan, restricting their access to domestic services, including education. However, according to Johnstone, the government is in the process of rethinking this policy and he expects an imminent change to grant refugees access to more basic services.
Jordan is currently home to up to 750,000 Iraqi refugees. However, following the November 2005 Iraqi-insurgent linked bombing in Amman which killed 60 people, the government has largely blocked the entry of new refugees, a policy Johnstone does not expect to change.
“I see very little prospect that they’re going to open their borders any time soon,” he said.
Syria
In Syria, which still grants Iraqis entry into the country, Johnstone praised government policy towards the estimated 1.5 million refugees, but expressed concern for the 1,400 Palestinians stranded in makeshift desert camps on the Syrian-Iraqi border.
The Syrian government has refused Palestinians entry into the country for fear that it will lead to the inflow of all 15,000 Palestinians in Iraq.
Returning from a trip to Al-Tanf and Al-Walid camps, Johnstone described the situation as desperate.
“The victims are in dire straits: medically in dire straits - in terms of water and food in dire straits. This is not a happy picture,” he said.
He said a third country had been willing to accept the Palestinians but that the proposal had been vetoed by the Palestinian Authority worried that the flight of Palestinians from the region would endanger their right of return. He said negotiations for their resettlement were ongoing.
“We are in touch with a couple of countries where we have some hope, but we don’t have a Yes yet. So we’re pushing,” he said.
Role for aid agencies
Johnstone also called on the international community to strengthen its support for the two countries, suggesting that those unwilling to deal directly with the Syrian government, such as the USA, provide support via humanitarian agencies.
“The international community has got to step up and help Syria out and there’s a lot of ways people can help Syria... For one thing the UNHCR is here and it’s helping and they can donate to the UNHCR and we’ll see to it that Syria is the beneficiary,” he said.
A regional conference to be attended by Jordanian, Syrian, Egyptian and UNHCR officials has been arranged in Jordan for 26 July to discuss the Iraqi refugee crisis.
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RE: 100,000 fleeing Iraq every month! - 7/26/2007 6:19:44 AM
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Lion of Babylon
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I just posted this in the wrong thread - Latest in the crackdown against the Militias.......Sorry Harry & Tigris! 
Iraq neighbours seek refugee aid
An international conference has opened in Jordan aimed at finding ways to ease the burden of countries with large numbers of Iraqi refugees.
More than two million Iraqis have left their war-ravaged homeland. The UN says about 50,000 more people leave Iraq each month, mostly to Jordan and Syria which want international help to ease the burden on their services.
The UN refugee agency has called the exodus a humanitarian crisis threatening the region's stability. It says the wave of displacement sparked by the war in Iraq is the biggest in the Middle East since 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled the newly created Israel.
One refugee in Jordan, grandmother Najla Abda Karim Saleh, fled with her son and daughter. Another daughter was killed in sectarian violence - apparently by being burned alive. She told the BBC she wanted help to bring the her four grandchildren to safety in Amman, the Jordanian capital.
"I ask the big man who is in charge, who is responsible about the UN to heed my voice. I am a mother, I lost everything... we have lost [our] house, we are lost, my daughter is lost, my son [is] lost... help this family please," she wept.
Hosts over-stretched
Jordan and Syria want some assurance that the Iraqis will either eventually return to their homeland or be resettled elsewhere. Egypt and Lebanon have also received thousands of Iraqis. The UN refugee agency earlier this month doubled its annual appeal for funding to help uprooted Iraqis to $123m to boost medical care, shelter and other support.
Craig Johnstone, the UN deputy high commissioner for refugees, called for international assistance, since Syria and Jordan had few resources to cope with the influx.
"The international community, I think, has neglected the plight of the refugees from Iraq so far, but they are beginning to act," he told the BBC.
In May, Jordan said hosting the Iraqis was costing the desert kingdom about $1bn a year. It has commissioned a survey to determine the exact number of Iraqis on its territory. Syria hosts nearly 1.5 million displaced Iraqis.
Limited services
In Jordan, clinics provide free immunisation to Iraqi children, but not full health-care services. Government schools, already stretched to the maximum, only allow a small portion of Iraqi children with residency permits to attend.
Syria provides greater services to the Iraqis, but even there the UN says that only a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugee children there are able to attend school. The UN refugee agency says it hopes to find a permanent home for a total of 20,000 Iraqi exiles by the end of the year.
Although the US administration announced earlier in the year that it would allow 7,000 Iraqis into the US by the end of September, it has allowed in just 133 over the past nine months because of stringent security measures.
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RE: 100,000 fleeing Iraq every month! - 7/26/2007 10:08:43 PM
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Lion of Babylon
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Iraq refugee summit offers help
An international conference in Jordan on the more than two million Iraqi refugees uprooted by war has pledged to help them with their difficulties.
But it insisted the solution to the problem lay in their return home and that the Iraqi government was directly responsible for its displaced citizens. The UN refugee agency, Unrwa, said some 50,000 more Iraqis were escaping the violence in their homeland each month. Most are ending up in Jordan and Syria, which want help to ease the burden. Unrwa said the wave of displacement sparked by the war in Iraq was the biggest in the Middle East since 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled the newly created Israel.
A final statement at the end of the conference, which was attended by Iraq's neighbours, as well as the UN, US and UK, called on the international community to provide all possible support to the Iraqi people. It also insisted countries hosting refugees were given assistance "so that they can continue to provide an adequate level of services to Iraqi nationals", particularly in health and education. The host countries should have the authority to regulate the entry and residence of Iraqi nationals "in line with their law and considerations", the statement added.
But the conference stopped short of addressing calls by Jordan and Syria earlier in the day for rich western nations to take in greater numbers of refugees. The Iraqi government said it would make available a promised $25m for those straining under the load of the burgeoning numbers of refugees.
'Real humanitarian crisis'
Earlier, the secretary-general of the Iraqi foreign ministry, Muhammad Hajj Hamoud, said the refugee problem should not be underestimated. He added that efforts to stem the flow of refugees by Iraq's neighbours - who now impose tougher entry restrictions - resulted in cases of mistreatment at border crossings. One refugee in Jordan, Najla Abda Karim Saleh, fled with her son and daughter. Another daughter was killed in sectarian violence. She told the BBC she wanted help from the UN to bring her four grandchildren to safety in Amman, the Jordanian capital.
"We have lost [our] house, we are lost, my daughter is lost, my son [is] lost... help this family please," she wept.
The secretary-general of the Jordanian interior ministry, Mukhaimar Abu Jamous, told the summit that western countries had "relinquished their responsibility in shouldering the Iraqi refugee burden" and urged them to resettle the largest number possible. The Syrian ambassador to Jordan, Milad Attiya, said the international community "must be involved, especially the United States because its policy led to the plight the Iraqis are currently in and it bears responsibility".
Although the US government announced earlier in the year that it would allow 7,000 Iraqis into the US by the end of September, it has allowed in just 133 over the past nine months because of stringent security measures.
Craig Johnstone, the UN deputy high commissioner for refugees, called for international assistance, since Syria and Jordan had few resources to cope with the influx. "The international community, I think, has neglected the plight of the refugees from Iraq so far, but they are beginning to act," he told the BBC. Unrwa says it hopes to find a permanent home for a total of 20,000 Iraqi exiles by the end of the year.
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RE: 100,000 fleeing Iraq every month! - 7/28/2007 2:27:38 PM
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Lion of Babylon
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UN Appeal for Education of Iraqi Refugees
US "Expects to Contribute Generously" to $129 Mil UNHCR/UNICEF Effort
Two UN agencies have launched a $129 million appeal to extend educational opportunity to Iraqi schoolchildren living as refugees in neighboring countries of the region. The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and UNICEF have issued a joint report and statement calling for international donations to fund the expansion of national educational systems in Middle Eastern countries hosting Iraqi refugee children.
In a statement, the US State Department has said "The United States expects to contribute generously" to the appeal. While there is "no accurate count" of school-age Iraqi children that have fled Iraq, the UN agencies write, estimates suggest that "nearly half" of the approximately two million Iraqis displaced outside the country are children, of whom around 500,000 are of school age.
"Without a swift, robust and effective response from the international community to support the host countries in providing education opportunities for Iraqi children, the dangers related to the emergence of an uneducated and alienated young generation of Iraqis will become real," UNHCR and UNICEF write in the joint appeal, adding:
Many Iraqi children in the Syrian Arab Republic, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon are struggling to learn in over-crowded classrooms. Female headed households are seriously at risk with their children, who are often out of school, sitting in cramped apartments or forced to live in the streets, and are exposed to potential abuse and far-reaching alienation and manipulation. As host governments do not have the resources to meet the educational needs of the increasing numbers of Iraqi youth, UNHCR and UNICEF believe that the international community must provide substantive support to the concerned countries with the aim to offer much needed education to desperate Iraqi children. Syria and Jordan host the brunt of the Iraqi refugee population, with sizable Iraqi populations also taking up residence in Lebanon, Egypt, as well as other regional countries.
Although Syrian policy is to provide free education to all Arab citizens living in its borders, in practice only a fraction of the estimated 300,000 school-age Iraqi children living in Syria are receiving education. In areas where Iraqi refugees are concentrated, the Syrian educational infrastructure has been swamped, and only 32,000 Iraqi children are enrolled in Syrian schools. In Jordan, the government estimates 19,000 Iraqi children are enrolled in schools, and the ministry of education has committed with the UN agencies to the goal of fully enrolling the remaining 50,000 children.
Interestingly, while it applauds the Jordanian government for a recent agreement to provide education to all Iraqi refuge children in US-allied Jordan, the State Department’s statement does not mention the long-standing Syrian commitment to provide education to all Arab citizens, including Iraqis, even though the Syrian educational system is coping with a far larger estimated influx of Iraqi refugee children. Syria has set the goal of enrolling another 100,000 Iraqi schoolchildren in the coming year, according to the UN agencies.
Other targets of the joint appeal include enrolling 2,000 Iraqi children in Egyptian schools, 1,500 in Lebanon, and 1,500 elsewhere in the Middle East. The program aims to increase capacity in the national education systems to enroll Iraqi children, and eschews the idea of creating a parallel educational system for Iraqi refugees. The joint appeal program targets primary, secondary, and vocational training, along with “a number of higher education opportunies,” depending on “absorption capacity” of universities in the host countries.
In addition to swamped infrastructure, the UN agencies cites a litany of other issues facing displaced Iraqi students, including unstable living conditions; lack of resources to purchase uniforms and supplies; families sending children to work rather than school to cope with the economic realities of refugee life; psychological trauma in children who have fled a conflict zone; lack of school documentation for families forced to leave under duress; the uncertain residency status of many displaced Iraqi families; and families simply not knowing that they could send their children to school in the host countries. “Children with special needs face enormous challenges, as their families do not have sufficient resources to send them to schools with the required facilities,” the two agencies write. Some families have also found the curriculum or placement of their children inappropriate or discouraging, leading to students dropping out.
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RE: 100,000 fleeing Iraq every month! - 8/4/2007 6:06:07 AM
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Lion of Babylon
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More bad news I'm afraid! 
Iraq faces alarming humanitarian crisis
Iraq's people were poor and lacked most of the normal signs of development, even before the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Then it was possible to blame the problems of dictatorship and international sanctions, but since the US-led invasion continuing poverty in this oil-rich state has had other causes. A new report by Oxfam says that the continuing failure to provide even the most basic services to many Iraqis will not only cause continuing suffering, but "serve to further destabilise the country". Oxfam are unable to work on the ground in Iraq in the way that they would elsewhere, but working with the NGO Co-ordination Committee in Iraq (NCCI), their new survey finds "eight million people in need of emergency aid". The survey recognises that armed violence is the greatest threat facing Iraqis, but finds a population "increasingly threatened by disease and malnutrition".
Savage divisions
Clear statistical analysis is difficult, but the Oxfam/NCCI report believes that more than two million people are now internally displaced within Iraq, as savage new lines are drawn between communities who were not at war before.
Delivering aid to them provides new challenges to a system that is coping even less well than it did in the year after the war.
Of the four million Iraqis who are registered to receive food assistance, 60% receive it. That is down from 96% in the year after the war. Fewer people have access to clean water than did under Saddam Hussein, and 80% have no access to effective sanitation, a figure comparable to sub-Saharan Africa. Most UN agencies have found it difficult to operate in Iraq since the devastating bomb that killed their special representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and many of his staff only six months after the invasion. The invasion itself was not mandated by the UN, but the reconstruction effort has since won more international support and its backing.
Humanitarian needs neglected
The Oxfam/NCCI report finds that the immediate needs of Iraqis are being neglected by international funding, which is targeted at longer term development goals. These goals will be hard to achieve given the major security challenges. The report finds that funding for these longer-term projects went up by almost 1000% in the first two years after the invasion, but, despite the need, immediate humanitarian aid fell by about a half.
The report says that the right of the people of Iraq to humanitarian support "is being neglected".
But, while reminding the international community and the UN of their moral responsibility, it recommends a number of basic steps that the government in Baghdad could take to improve the plight of the people. Most urgently, the report demands that government assistance should be devolved to local control. That way, locally accountable bodies could inspect the warehouses and delivery systems for aid. This report must represent a major challenge both to the international authorities and the Iraqi government, who are both found to be failing their people.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6921623.stm
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RE: 100,000 fleeing Iraq every month! - 8/6/2007 9:39:40 PM
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Lion of Babylon
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Najaf IDP Camp Turning Away Homeless Families
Local Officials Say Crowding Would Worsen Plight for All Displaced in Camp
NAJAF, 1 August 2007 (IRIN) - An internally displaced persons (IDP) camp just outside the southern Iraqi city of Najaf has closed to new arrivals, forcing hundreds of Iraqis fleeing violence in Baghdad and neighbouring governorates to look elsewhere for refuge.
Families trying to access Najaf’s al-Manathera camp told IRIN they were desperately searching for a place to stay as their children were getting sick in the hot weather and they had no food or shelter.
“We have been trying to get access to a camp in Najaf for the past five days... but so far no one has offered us help and my two smallest children are getting sick,” said Um Abir, mother of four, recently displaced due to sectarian violence in Baghdad.
“It is hard for us to see people getting full assistance inside the camps while we are outside hungry, tired and dirty,” Um Abir said, adding: “Someone should look after us before we get shot, or die in this terrible hot weather, because we don’t have anywhere to shelter and have to cover our heads with newspaper.”
However, Muthana Ali Zeid, media officer in the Najaf Governorate Council, said they could not afford to provide any more assistance to new arrivals.
“Many camps are completely full and, if we allow families to come in, existing IDPs will lose the assistance they are getting,” Zeid said.
Al-Manathera camp
The al-Manathera camp is in an old wood factory near the Abu Skhear Silo, Al-Manathera District, about 18km south of Najaf city. The camp is one kilometre down a dirt track off the main road linking Al-Manathera with Najaf city.
The Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration (MoDM) set up the camp in January 2007 in cooperation with the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) to house families who had been squatting in settlements that had been demolished, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in its June/July update report on IDPs in camps in Iraq.
The camp is currently managed by the Najaf branch of the MoDM and hosts 230 families - about 1,150 people.
Zeid said a new security fence around the camp made it almost impossible for new arrivals to get in. “We understand that people need to save their lives but we also need to realise that too many families in a camp is even worse,” he said.
“We cannot let more children die in the camp. If more people come in, the possibility of diseases spreading will be higher,” Zeid said.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), up to mid-July three infants aged 1-3 had died owing to the extreme heat, and the risk of dehydration was high.
Anita Raman, associate reporting officer for the UNHCR Iraq Operation, said the camp suffered from lack of cooling systems and medical care and IDPs were in a very difficult economic situation as there were few jobs.
Shortage of land
The MoDM said ministry officials were looking into establishing new camps near al-Manathera but noted that most nearby land was owned by individuals unwilling to let others use it.
“We are trying to get nearby landowners to agree to allow the construction of new camps but unfortunately some are strongly opposed to the idea, saying it might affect agriculture and their living conditions,” Dina Youssef, a senior MoMD official, said.
Based on monitoring by MoDM, the UNHCR and the IOM, there are some 2.2 million IDPs in Iraq, 1,011,870 of whom were displaced in the past 16 months. Najaf governorate alone is home to 53,970 IDPs, with families continuing to move within the governorate to safer non-urban areas.
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RE: 100,000 fleeing Iraq every month! - 8/8/2007 2:25:15 AM
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Lion of Babylon
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UN urged to withdraw Iraq staff The United Nations should withdraw all of its workers from Iraq until the security situation improves, the body's staff union has said. The union believes UN personnel will not be properly protected by US-led forces in the country. The call comes as UN officials prepare to pass a draft resolution giving the organisation an expanded role in Iraq. The UN has had a low-key presence there since a truck bomb devastated its Baghdad headquarters in August 2003. The world body swept most of its personnel out of the Iraqi capital after the blast, and currently allows a maximum of 65 overseas workers to reside in the country. But the draft resolution, backed by the US and UK, would raise the upper limit on workers to 95.
'Comparative advantage'
The resolution - which will prolong the UN mission's mandate in Iraq - will also give the UN a bigger role in the country's political reconciliation. The UN special envoy in Iraq would be allowed to "advise, support and assist" the Iraqi government in political, economic, electoral, legal, constitutional, refugee and human rights matters. Washington's envoy to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, said he expected the new resolution to be adopted by Thursday this week.
"The UN needs to play an enhanced role in helping the Iraqis overcome the difficulties they have at the present time," he said.
"The UN can, given its comparative advantage, play a role in facilitating and helping Iraqis get to that goal."
Correspondents say the staff union's opposition to the move will deter many of its members from going. Former Secretary General Kofi Annan pulled most of the UN's international staff out of Iraq after the top UN envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 21 other people died in a huge explosion at the UN headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6936144.stm
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RE: 100,000 fleeing Iraq every month! - 8/12/2007 11:15:54 PM
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Lion of Babylon
Posts: 1188
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Joined: 5/9/2007
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Refugees in Jordan; High security for Shi'ite pilgrims; US seeks UN help on Iraq
Not a lot of bang-bang news from Iraq today, but it allows for some meaty enterprise reporting from both the Washington Post and The New York Times.
Sudarsan Raghavan of the Post leads off with a well-played front-page story on the difficulties in finding and fighting the right enemies in Iraq, focusing on the Triangle of Death south of Baghdad. The men of the 3rd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment are smack-dab in the middle of Iraq's civil war down there. "We are in the middle of it," said Col. Michael Garrett, commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne) of the 25th Infantry Division, indicating the center of his area of operations, which is the size of Rhode Island. "I'm not fighting one sect or the other. I'm fighting both. And not only am I fighting both, but at certain points I have to put my forces in between the Sunni and Shia groups to protect the populace." Complicating matters is the number of players and the rivalries. Shi'ite-on-Shi'ite, Sunni-on-Sunni, Shi'ite-on-Sunni, everybody on the Americans. "We are in the land of the blood feuds," said Maj. Rick Williams, a liaison to tribes in the area. "It's very difficult to tell a tribal fight from a sectarian fight because interests are pretty mixed. You can't just put up a fence." Raghavan tackles the competing and overlapping conflicts in the region on a town-by-town basis: Iskandariya is split by Shi'ite-Sunni tensions; Musayyib is torn by intra-Shi'ite rivalries; swampy Khdir is home to Sunni foes, and its terrain makes it the least hospitable to U.S. forces. Frustration among the troops is high.
"We haven't done anything here. We'll go for 24 hours and we'll see nothing," said Sgt. Josh Claeson, a radio operator, as he waited with nearly 200 soldiers under the glow of an orange moon for helicopters to Khidr. "Our basic mission here is to drive around and get blown up."
At the cemetery the next morning, after the discovery of the weapons cache, a soldier picked up one of the guns and raised it triumphantly. "Hey, we are heroes," he declared, posing for a camera.
Stories like these bring the complexity and frustrations of the war home. More please.
The Times' Sabrina Tavernise tackles the other big enterprise piece today, looking at the plight of well-off Iraqis as they become refugees in Jordan. Many of the well to do of Baghdad -- the bank managers, social club directors and business owners -- now in Amman can't work because they don't have residency status. They thought their money would last. It's not. Rents are high, schools are expensive and the illegal jobs they get pay very little. Most Iraqis are surviving by burning through their assets. And the ones who suffer the most are the kids. As Tavernise writes: "Now, as a new school year begins, many Iraqis here say they can no longer afford some of life's basic requirements -- education for their children and hospital visits for their families. Teeth are pulled instead of filled. Shampoo is no longer on the grocery list. "My savings are finished," said Amira, who is 50. "My kids won't be in school this year." Their losses are Iraq's. They were the educated, secular center of Baghdad and Iraqi life that fled rather than take sides in the civil war next door. As they become poorer and the longer they stay away, the future of Iraq looks grimmer without a middle and upper class to renew its society. While there has not been a formal count done for Iraqis in Jordan, it's probably much less than the 750,000 usually reported, according to Fafo, a Norwegian group. But even if it's half that, that's still 10 percent of the population of Amman's two million.
Shi'ite Pilgrims
Damien Cave and Qais Mizher report for the Times that the pilgrimage of tens of thousands of people to the Shi'ite shrine in Kadhimiya in Baghdad went relatively smoothly because of the increased security. Two people were killed and 15 injured in a crush of people trying to get to train and Iraqi soldiers killed a sniper in the Sunni area of Yarmouk after he opened up on pilgrims around 2 p.m. yesterday. As Cave and Mizher write, the relatively calm day "was a testament to the rise and consolidation of Shiite power in the capital." The full power of the government was put to the ends of the Shi'ite pilgrims. Government vehicles -- including armored military vehicles -- even ferried pilgrims to the shrine. Some of the Shi'ites even praised Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for keeping the place safe. There were signs of reconciliation. On Haifa Street, formerly one of the most notorious of the Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad, residents handed out tea and food to the pilgrims, gladdening them. Some Sunni politicians, notably Adnan al-Dulaimi, leader of Iraq's main Sunni party, groused that the government shouldn't allow its vehicles to be used because it showed favoritism. In other news, the U.S. military announced that a marine had been killed in combat in Anbar on Tuesday and a soldier died Wednesday in Baghdad from "nonhostile" causes.
News Elsewhere
In a second front-pager, Colum Lynch and Robin Wright of the Post report that the U.S. is really stepping up its outreach to the United Nations in its quest to get some help on Iraq. It's even proposed a series of U.N.-brokered talks in Baghdad between the U.S. and Iraq's neighbors in an effort to get the region to support the Maliki government. The effort is being led by the American ambassador to the U.N. and former ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, and is modeled on the approach used to build the post-Taliban government in Afghanistan. (Zal was involved in that, too, big surprise.) As the diplomatic duo write: "The resurgence of this approach underscores the rising influence of pragmatic U.S. diplomats who believe it is necessary to engage some of America's bitterest enemies in the Middle East." Until now, the U.S. alone has failed to win much support for Iraq, with globetrotting by secretaries of State and Defense Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates coming up with essentially nothing. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker hasn't had much luck engaging Iran directly in Baghdad, either. The irony of it all? In 2003, many of Iraq's neighbors called for regional talks under the U.S. or U.N. aegis, but the Bush administration didn't want to engage Syria or Iran. Now with no credibility and little time, the White House has turned to the U.N. Man, the diplomats on the East River must be chortling right now. A few sticking points, however: The Iraqi government doesn't like the U.S.'s pick to head the talks and is asking for "prior consent" for all U.N. diplomatic activities.
Two marines had all charges against them relating to the November 2005 incident in Haditha, reports Josh White for the Post. One marine, Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt, was completely cleared and another, Capt. Randy W. Stone, was | | | |
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