Iraq and Region Update for August 8, 2008
Welcome to FCNL's Biweekly Iraq and Region Update for August 8, 2008
This special edition of the update focuses on Iraqis who have been forced to flee their homes. International relief organizations refer to them as either "internally displaced people" (because they remain in Iraq) or "refugees" (because they have left the country).
I. In Congress
Today, more than 5 million Iraqis (one-fifth of the population) are living somewhere other than in their homes. This displacement is due to the Iraq war and to a lesser extent the 12 preceding years of economic sanctions and 23 years of repression by Saddam Hussein's regime. About 2.4 million Iraqis are refugees in Syria, Jordan, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, and the Gulf states. They constitute the largest refugee movement in Middle East history, larger even than the 1947-48 displacement of Palestinian Arabs in the first Arab-Israeli war. Another 2.7 million Iraqis are displaced inside Iraq.
The majority of Iraqis forced from their homes have fled since the United States and its coalition partners invaded Iraq in 2003. Population flight also increased sharply after the Samarra mosque bombing in early 2006 and the waves of ethnic cleansing that followed. Several thousand Iraqis are leaving the country each month, according to reports from Iraqi border crossings. Many other people were forced from their homes in the aftermath of the first Gulf war in 1991, as Saddam Hussein's forces suppressed the popular uprisings among Kurds and Shiites. Others left Iraq between 1991 and 2003, a period when stringent economic sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council at the insistence of the United States and Britain crippled the Iraqi economy and prompted an exodus of the professional and business class.
Where Are Internally Displaced People and Refugees?
Most of today's 2.7 million internally displaced people are currently living in northeastern Iraq, in the Kurdish region and along the border with Iran. Iraqi refugees are dispersed in the Middle East region as follows. Click here to see UNHCR's map of the Iraqi Displacement Crisis (PDF)
- Syria: 1.5 million
- Jordan: 500,000
- Kuwait and other Gulf states: 200,000
- Egypt: 120,000
- Iran: 57,000
- Lebanon: 20,000-50,000
- Turkey: 5,000
Conditions for both groups are poor and growing worse, as families exhaust their financial resources and are unable to find work. The head of the Iraqi parliament's Migration and Displacement Committee, Abdul-Khaliq Zankana, warns that
"day after day Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries are getting more frustrated by the harsh conditions in which they live…. Most of them are unemployed and deprived of health care and education, even though their country is oil-rich…. Sooner or later they are going to have a negative impact on the stability of the whole region."
Zankana believes it could take a decade to solve the refugee and displacement problem, but he says the Iraqi government and the international community must do much more right now to improve conditions. He has called on the Iraqi government to earmark 5 percent of its soaring oil revenues to help refugees and the internally displaced with food, health care, and education.
We at FCNL want the United States to do much more to address the plight of Iraq's refugees and internally displaced people. The Iraqi government must do more to help as well, but the United States needs to acknowledge its large share of responsibility for the suffering and try to make amends. Some members of Congress are recognizing the U.S. moral responsibility and working to get more funding for Iraq's refugees and internally displaced people. For the United States, this would be a first step toward helping to rebuild Iraq after the destruction wrought by the war and earlier sanctions. But the ongoing cost of the war, the state of the U.S. economy, and the difficulty of facing up to the consequences of U.S. actions all could discourage Congress from paying attention to displaced people, refugees, and Iraq's larger reconstruction needs. Your members of Congress need to hear from you in the months ahead to remind them of U.S. responsibilities.
I. Keep on Lobbying
Rep. Alcee Hastings (FL) introduced legislation last month to address U.S. responsibility toward Iraqi refugees and internally displaced people. The bill, H.R. 6496, would require the United States to contribute at least 50 percent of the funds requested by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees for humanitarian assistance to Iraq's internally displaced and refugees in Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, and Iran, up to a total of $700 million per year for three years. The bill would also increase the number of Iraqi refugees allowed to immigrate to the United States by 20,000 for each of the next three years.
Congress expects to be in session for only three weeks in September before adjourning until January, so it is unlikely to act on H.R. 6496 this year. But if the bill gains enough cosponsors now, it will become an important starting point for Iraq refugee legislation in the 111th Congress. Write to your representative and urge him or her to cosponsor H.R. 6496. The bill is the best legislation introduced in Congress so far that begins to address U.S. responsibility for the displacement created by the Iraq war.
See FCNL's grassroots toolkit for tips on scheduling a lobby visit during the August recess and meeting with members of Congress or their staff. You can find the locations of your representative's district offices in FCNL's online congressional directory.
III. Annapolis Peace Process Watch
Refugees from Iraq are influencing other events in the Middle East, including the post-Annapolis peace process between Israel and Palestine.
More than 3,000 stateless Palestinians, harassed and intimidated both by Iraqi government forces and other armed groups, have fled Iraq to an area of the Iraqi-Syrian border, where they have been living in tents in the desert with little assistance. Syria refuses to admit them. Israel previously permitted 41 of the refugees to join relatives in the West Bank but refused to allow 10 others to join family in Gaza and would not consider a wider resettlement. Now, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Sudan have agreed to relocate the Palestinians to Khartoum. But refugee advocates, including Refugees International have criticized the agreement because it moves the Palestinians from one unstable situation to another without their consent. Resettlement of these Palestinians in the West Bank would have been a far better solution for them and could have helped put the post-Annapolis peace process on a more promising course.
For more Iraq and Region Updates, see archive