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Iraqi refugee catastrophe

Thousands of displaced in desperate of support

by Paul Cochrane

One of the world’s largest refugee crises is underway in theMiddle East. It has been going on for the last four years, but judging by the scant attention the issue receives inWashington DC, London and in the Western media, you wouldn’t think so. I’m referring to the Iraqi refugee crisis.

According to UN figures there are an estimated 1.6 millionIraqis internally displaced, 750,000 in neighboring Jordan,1.4 million plus in Syria, 80,000 in Egypt, and 30,000 inLebanon.

In all fairness to the media, the Iraqi refugee crisis inJordan has garnered token attention, but the equally pressing situation in Syria has not.

As for Jordan, the influx of Iraqis to Syria has been a double-edged sword. Initially the Iraqis that fled were middle to upper class, bringing with them life savings that were duly invested in property, setting up businesses and making a home away from home. But as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated to resemble one of Dante’s cycles of hell, the Iraqis flooding into Jordan and Syria are increasingly cash strapped.

In Syria, this has brought with it misery, desperation and a growing xenophobia towards the Iraqi refugees due to rents doubling in price and food costs rising by an estimated 10%in just two years.

As one Syrian man remarked, even Syrian prostitutes are complaining about the influx because of the number of Iraqiwomen selling themselves on the streets – for as little as150 Syrian pounds ($3).

The refugee crisis is compounding Syria’s internal problems, what with 11.4% of the population living in poverty, 20%unemployed, and a population that is projected to surge from the current 18 million to 30 million by 2025. On top of all that, the Syrian government announced in April that the refugees have cost the state an estimated $1 billion.

Compared to the coverage immigration and refugees get in theEuropean press, it wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination to visualize the stink the media would cause if, say,Britain’s population had grown by about 8% – the equivalent number of Iraqis now in Syria – in under four years due to a massive influx of refugees. It would rightly be deemed a major international crisis.

But the countries primarily responsible for the real crisis in the Middle East, the United States and Britain, have kept passing the buck and taken in a paltry number of Iraqi refugees.

The Bush administration, recently caving in after a great deal of pressure, said the United States would accept 7,000this year – still a drop in the ocean compared with Syria and Jordan, but a step in the right direction considering less than 500 Iraqis have been admitted since the war began.

Britain is no better, approving just 12% of Iraqi asylum claims, according to Amnesty International, whereas Sweden has a 91% approval rate, admitting 60,000 Iraqis and suspending the forcible return of refugees.

The West cannot of course take in millions of Iraqi refugees, but what it can do is boost aid to humanitarian organizations and the UNHCR in Jordan and Syria until Iraqis can return home.

But just as Britain and the United States inadequately planned for the aftermath of the invasion, the White House and Downing Street have not allocated adequate funds for refugees.

The funds that the international community has earmarked for the Iraqi crisis are primarily for use in Iraq, not for the neighboring countries grappling with the spill-over from the occupation.

“Syrians are complaining that Iraqis are raising the price of rent and oil, but if Syria doesn’t take them, who will?”questioned Dr Nabil Sukkar, managing director of the SyrianConsulting Bureau for Development and Investment.

Indeed. Clearly not the US or Britain, and neighboring SaudiArabia has kept its doors firmly shut, building a US-Mexico border style fence, at a cost of $7 billion, to keepIraqis out.

The Iraqi refugee crisis is going to be with us for the foreseeable future, and it is about time the US and Britain pulled their weight in efforts to rectify what theInternational Refugee Committee has rightly called ‘a humanitarian crisis of historic proportions.’

PAUL COCHRANE is a freelance journalist based in Beirut, regularly contributing to Singapore’s The Straits Times and The Independent on Sunday.

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Paul Cochrane

Paul Cochrane is the Middle East Correspondent for International News Services. He has lived in Beirut since 2002, and has written for some 70 publications worldwide, covering business, media, politics and culture in the Middle East, East Africa and the Indian subcontinent.
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