Iran to start voluntary repatriation of Iraqis this week: official
IRNA
Tehran, May 27, IRNA -- Iran this week will start repatriating
about 200,000 Iraqi refugees according to an agreement with the UN
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a senior Interior Ministry
official said here Tuesday.
The head of the Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants Affairs
(BAFIA), Ahmad Hosseini, stressed that the repatriation is voluntary,
according to which Iraqi refugees could lodge their case at centers
for return of Afghans or BAFIA offices throughout Iran.
The returning refugees will be transferred by buses or other
vehicles, given by UN, to the southern Iraqi city of Basra via the
Shalamcheh border crossing in southwest Iran, he added.
"According to negotiations, held through the UN High Commissioner
for Refugees, with the British government, guarantees have been made
so that the Geneva Convention's requirements to safeguard the security
of refugees and their access to basic needs are respected," he said.
An envoy of UNHCR based in the northeastern city of Mashhad,
Tshiro Odashima, had recently said that the plan for repatriating
Iraqi refugees had been put on halt until a transitional government
was formed in Iraq.
Iran accounts for more than half of the Iraqi refugee population
in the world, Odashima said.
Hosseini said 1.3 million Iraqis entered Iran at the start of the
first Persian Gulf War in 1991. At least 150,000 Iraq refugees moved
close to Iran's borders as the US-led onslaught against Saddam
Hussein began in March this year, the official added.
Iran's Red Crescent Society has also made six billion rials of
assistance in cash to Iraq since the US-led invasion of that
country started, Hosseini said.
According to the official, the Islamic Republic has further
shipped relief donations of the World Food Program, including 25,000
tons of flour, 800 tons of cooking oil, 13,000 tons of sugar and 1,900
tons of peas, to Iraq.
BH/RR
End
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