Refugees
Caught Between Deportation And Death Threats
By
Ali al-Fadhily
07 December,
2007
Inter
Press Service
BAGHDAD, Dec 6 (IPS) - Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis
driven out of their country by violence are now faced with detention
abroad, or a homecoming to death threats.
More than
two million Iraqis, in a population of about 25 million, have taken
refuge in many countries. Only a few have won official status as refugees.
Most refugees in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and many other countries
stay on as illegal residents, facing threats of deportation and imprisonment.
"To
deport an Iraqi refugee is to issue a death warrant," Ali Jassim,
an Iraqi journalist recently deported from Lebanon told IPS in Baghdad.
"The Lebanese authorities are applying regular migration rules
to Iraqis, meaning that most Iraqis in Lebanon will be deported."
The Human
Rights Watch report titled 'Rot Here or Die There: Bleak Choices for
Iraqi Refugees in Lebanon' released Dec. 4 says Lebanese authorities
are arresting Iraqi refugees who have no valid visas, and detaining
them indefinitely to coerce them to return to Iraq.
"Iraqi
refugees in Lebanon live in constant fear of arrest," Bill Frelick,
refugee policy director for Human Rights Watch told reporters. "Refugees
who are arrested face the prospect of rotting in jail indefinitely unless
they agree to return to Iraq and face the dangers there."
There are
at least 40,000 Iraqi refugees in Lebanon, according to the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Complaints
of mistreatment by Lebanese authorities pushed many Iraqis to flee Lebanon
for Syria earlier, but this is no longer possible. As of Oct. 1, the
Syrian government requires Iraqis to obtain visas.
The Iraqi
refugees already in Syria are struggling.
The World
Food Programme (WFP) reported Dec. 4 that about a third of Iraqis in
Syria are skipping one meal a day in order to feed their children. WFP
officials said nearly 60 percent of Iraqi refugees reported purchasing
cheaper, less nutritious food in the face of a dramatic increase in
food prices.
"My
55-year-old brother is now under Lebanese police custody," Zahra
Naji, a schoolteacher in Baghdad told IPS. "He can choose to come
home in order to be released, but he will definitely get killed by militiamen
who keep coming to our house looking for him because he was a Ba'ath
Party member before the U.S. occupation of Iraq."
Jordan has
at least 750,000 Iraqi refugees, according to UNHCR. The majority of
these do not have legal residency permits.
To get those,
Iraqis need either to be investors who can deposit more than 100,000
dollars, or others who can get government jobs. Approvals for full residency
to Iraqis are scarce, and now few Iraqis are allowed into Jordan.
Many in Jordan
have been deported for all sorts of reasons.
"It
is true that Jordanian migration offices have stopped deporting Iraqi
illegal residents if they do not represent a threat to Jordan, but any
minor trouble could lead to deportation," said Omar Ahmed Saleem,
a 28-year-old student who was recently deported. "I had a fight
over a soccer game with some Jordanian guys, and so the police decided
I would be deported."
Omar said
he could not return to his family home in Baghdad, and was staying with
a friend in a different area of the city.
"I cannot
go to my family house because of my (Sunni) first name, 'Omar' which
is like a death warrant on me because sectarian militias are still active
in my area (the Sha'ab Quarter)," he told IPS.
Tens of thousands
of Sunni Iraqis have been killed simply because their names were Omar,
Bakr, Othman or other such, targeted by the Shia Badr and Mehdi militias.
"Jordanian
migration officers ask Iraqis sometimes whether they prefer to be deported
to Syria or to Iraq," Sammy Hamid, an Iraqi technician who was
deported from Jordan recently told IPS in Baghdad. "I worked as
a taxi driver and I knew they would deport me if they caught me, but
I could not find any other job. The new Syrian visa regulations made
it certain that I come to Iraq and take my chances."
Sammy now
faces detention by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior on charge of revealing
national secrets while working as a freelance cameraman who covered
many violent events. He is now forced to live away from his home and
work as a porter.
"Now
I am a porter instead of a reporter," Hamid laughed as he told
IPS of his plight.
But the situation
remains deadly serious for millions of displaced Iraqis.
"Millions
of Iraqis are suffering the consequences of the U.S. occupation, and
we hope our Arab brothers will think twice before deporting Iraqis,"
Ammar Shakir, a human rights activist in Baghdad told IPS. "No
matter what crime an Iraqi refugee might have committed, the punishment
should not be deportation that might lead to death."
According
to UNHCR, there are more than 2.25 million Iraqis internally displaced
within their country, besides more than 2.5 million who have fled Iraq.
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