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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
IRAQ: Aid agencies scramble to deal with influx of refugees from Iran
BAGHDAD, 23 March 2004 (IRIN) - Aid agencies and US administrators are scrambling to deal with the number of Iraqi refugees who have returned from Iran in the past few months.
Up to 1,500 are returning on buses every week, and this could double in coming weeks, Pascal Marlinge, director of the Italian NGO Intersos in Iraq, told IRIN in Baghdad. The figures are based on registrations at a refugee transit centre set up in the southern city of Basra, Marlinge said.
According to estimates from the US-led authorities governing Iraq, up to 50,000 people may have returned over the past year, but accurate figures are hard to establish.
Since 19 November 2003, 19 convoys of Iraqi refugees, totalling 5,227 people, have returned to Iraq voluntarily with assistance from the office for the UN Commissioner on Human Rights (UNHCR), Enda Savage, the agency's regional repatriation coordinator, told IRIN from Jordan. However, the UNHCR could not assess the number of spontaneous returns, he said.
Iran hosts the largest number of Iraqi refugees in the world at around 202,000, according to the UNHCR. Iraqis have fled to Iran since the mid-1970s, escaping war and persecution, with many arriving following the 1991 Gulf war.
Many were also forced out in the past 10 years when the former regime of Saddam Hussein drained marshlands in the south, taking away the livelihoods of thousands of people. In some places, people are trying to re-flood the region, a complicated process which often displaces other people who have built homes in places once covered by water.
Refugees now want to return to reclaim their land, Marlinge said. This is coupled with pressure from within Iran itself, he added, with the government seemingly encouraging Iraqis to leave. Although recognising that it's hard for aid groups to tell exactly what's going on in Iran, since most are not allowed to work there, Marlinge said Iran was also struggling to take care of other refugees from Afghanistan.
Iran has the world's largest refugee population, with over two million Afghans living in the country.
Marlinge was optimistic that conditions had improved sufficiently in Iraq for the refugees to return. "We will see migration, so we must be ready to welcome them," he said. "We have developed a lot of infrastructure to help them."
When refugees come to the transit centre, they get food and sign up for a ration card to be eligible to receive more food in the future, as well as receiving mine awareness training, Marlinge said.
"Last year, there was chaos in Iraq. Now there is rebuilding in education and health care systems," he said. "The conditions for return are getting easier and they see there is more support for them."
However, the UNHCR is less convinced. Citing security concerns and a lack of infrastructure to cope with returnees, the organisation has appealed to governments to ban forced repatriations. Nor is it promoting voluntary returns. It is, however, facilitating - in close coordination with host governments and upon clearance by Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) - the return of individuals who want to go back to Iraq voluntarily despite current conditions.
Looking at those who have made the journey back spontaneously it is hard to know where many end up once they arrive. Many homes were destroyed by the former regime or are now occupied by other families.
Some communities are bursting at the seams with recent arrivals who appear to be staying with relatives and neighbours, said Jose Fernandez, a programme manager at International Medical Corps (IMC), a US-based NGO. Hundreds of such people seem to be coming back into the country through informal border crossing points, he said.
In one village, for example, the population has grown from an estimated 2,500 to more than 40,000, Fernandez said. In another rural area, a population of 500 people has grown to 3,000. These estimates are based on each extended family returning having up to 11 people, he said.
However, US administrators announced over the weekend that they will close 16 of 19 legal border crossing points between Iraq and Iran in an attempt to stem terrorism, which could affect the flow of returnees. Fernandez said many things are currently being smuggled across remote border crossing points, including drugs and weapons.
Theme(s): (IRIN) Refugees/IDPs
[ENDS]
This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004
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