Refugee crisis looms for Iraq's neighbors

[Bosco 1]

Feb. 19, 2007, 8:15AM link

Refugee crisis looms for Iraq's neighbors

As the violence rages, hundreds of thousands have fled country

By GREGORY KATZ

AMMAN, JORDAN — Abdul Salam Alwan lives in the shadows, afraid to go out on the streets of Amman, the Jordanian capital where he and his family have taken refuge after receiving kidnap threats in Iraq.

His temporary visa has expired, his bid for residency has been stalled — as have the applications of hundreds of thousands of other Iraqis seeking to settle in Jordan — and he lives in fear of the police.

"I do not dare go out, because, if they stop us and arrest us, we will be deported," said Alwan, 42. "Jordan won't accept us, but some place has to accept us. ... All I want is the basic minimum — to have my kids in school and to be able to leave the house without fear."

The countries surrounding Iraq have been inundated with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the sectarian warfare, with Jordan and Syria bearing the brunt. There is a growing recognition that a refugee crisis of alarming proportions is unfolding as Iraq descends into anarchy.

Roughly 1 million Iraqis are likely to abandon their country in the next 12 months if the country doesn't stabilize, the Geneva-based International Organization of Migration predicted. U.S. officials announced a new plan last week to take in 7,000 Iraqis and urged other countries to accept more refugees.

Jordanian officials warn that their country, a staunch U.S. ally, cannot absorb more Iraqis without receiving help from wealthy nations. Border controls have been tightened to slow the daily influx of frightened Iraqis.

Officials estimate that between 500,000 and 750,000 Iraqis are in Jordan, most of them without proper documents.

"Their main problem is the lack of legal residency status, which means they don't have access to education or health care and they can't work legally," said Robert Breen, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees representative here.

Most receive three-month permits when they enter Jordan and become illegal once those expire, he said.

"The Jordanian government has been very tolerant, considering that these people represent a significant drain on government resources," Breen said. "They have not been rounded up or harassed, although there have been some deportations."

The international community has neglected this problem because officials assumed that security would improve inside Iraq, drawing the Iraqis back home, he said. Instead, the situation has deteriorated, prompting more people to flee.

Many end up in Jordan. The country has also drawn the attention of terrorists — al-Qaida suicide bombers from Iraq attacked three Amman hotels simultaneously, killing 60 people, in November 2005.

The city has become a meeting place for Iraqis of all stripes, ranging from wealthy functionaries from Saddam Hussein's deposed Baath Party to poor men and women who straggled into town with few resources and fewer hopes.

The affluent Iraqis have driven up property values and spawned resentment as they cruise in shiny BMWs and Mercedes. The struggling ones have often undercut Jordanian workers in the competition for low-wage jobs.

Alwan and his family fall somewhere in the middle.

He owned a small gold jewelry shop in Baghdad that produced a steady income, and the family lived in a comfortable house with a garden.

One of his daughters, Tayseer, was born with a severe hearing problem, but she was enrolled in a special school for the deaf, and his other two children, son Yousef and daughter Sara, attended school as well.

The family was part of the Sabian sect, a small religious group that is neither Christian nor Islamic. They were able to worship under Saddam Hussein's secular government, but they, like other minorities, have been targeted by the new Islamic parties fighting for control of Baghdad, Alwan said.

"There was no discrimination against us under Saddam, but the hatred was always there, hidden deep down, and when Saddam fell it all came to the surface," said Alwan, huddled with his family and other Sabians in a small apartment.

"We were called infidels and told we would be killed if we didn't convert. Then we got threats to kidnap my kids."

He said so many people he knew were kidnapped and forced to give up their houses or apartments as ransom payments that he withdrew his children from school.

"Now the militias are living in our houses in Baghdad, and here we are living like statues, doing nothing," he said.

His family has been living in Jordan for more than two years without an income. He said he has used all his savings.

Other Sabians who have arrived more recently have seen their families divided.

Azhar Sami, who left Baghdad eight months ago, lives with her two children in the same apartment house with Alwan, but her husband is stuck in Syria.

He came to Jordan, she said, but then left for Syria to visit his elderly mother and could not return because of the tougher border controls. She can reach him by telephone, but she does not know how they will be reunited.

Her application for Jordanian residency has been turned down, and her attempt to settle in Australia has also been rejected. Her husband has been petitioning the U.S. for permission to live in America for 15 years without success.

She and other Iraqis blame the United States for toppling Saddam, whom they called their protector, without making adequate plans for what would follow. They are suspicious about the new U.S. plan to admit more Iraqi refugees, which they say is too limited to have any impact.

"The Americans keep talking of solutions," she said, "but we don't see solutions. What does 7,000 mean if there are 1 million Iraqis in Jordan? Seven thousand is nothing."

Other minorities from Iraq, including many Christians, have sought haven in Jordan, as have many Muslims caught in the violent power struggle between Shiites and Sunnis.

The Mecca Mall, set in a part of Amman filled with new million-dollar villas, has become a gathering spot for many displaced Iraqis.

Wealthy Sunnis who enjoyed a privileged life under Saddam trade rumors with Turkmen who ran successful businesses, Christians who faced persecution after the regime fell and Shiites who fled when sectarian fighting worsened.

Many were part of an educated, professional class that is leaving Baghdad because of repeated threats, said Raja Mohammed.

"My husband was a professor in Baghdad, and we were afraid because professors were being assassinated," she said. "We were Shiites living in a Sunni area, and when we got a threat on the phone, we were afraid they would kidnap our kids, and we left right away.

"In Iraq, anyone who has the money to go will go."

[peezey 0]

Dozens of Iraqi porfessors fled Iraq a few years ago, pulled all their money together, and started a university in Syria, including a medical school. It's now so well regarded, even Iraqi Americans who have never been abroad are now attending this school. These professors will never return to Iraq.

This war has pushed anyone who had the ability to flee, out. This means middle class, professors, doctors, engineers, small business owners. People with skills to help rebuild the country are gone. They don't want to come back. Now Iraq is a mess, schools are trashed, hospitals are trashed. When Bremer went in, the first thing he had his 24 year old health administrator do was not figure out the absolute necessary supplies hospitals needed, but instead to create a master formulary for prescription drugs that had never even been seen in Iraq! So that US pharmaceutical companies could start shipping drugs!

How many generations will it take to recover back to the level of education and health care and general necessities of Hussein's era?

And now there is undue pressure on Jordan and Syria to accomodate refugees, all the while we're only accepting 7,000 of them, and only because international pressure is mounting. In the last few years, the US only accepted aroung 400 refugees each year. This is disgraceful. We create a mess, cost lives, ruin infrastructure, but lack the compassion and insight needed to repair it and take care of those who are displaced.