News: More refugees leaving Iraq than returning

A glut of stories have recenlty described how despite Bush Administration claims to the contrary, Iraq is still by no means safe for refugee return. Though Iraq’s minister of migration insists that exact numbers are difficult to track, it is clear that more Iraqis are heading to Syria than returning home. Reuters notes: “Better security not why most Iraqis go home”. The BBC ran a story with the blunt headline “We Can’t Return”. Ironically, for the minority who do want to return, Jordan – which has made it clear that it does not want these refugees – is imposing an expensive levy on those who have over-stayed their visas, preventing them from leaving. Returns home for internally displaced refugees are also on the wane.

To top things off, an historically drastic winter is making life near impossible for many refugees.

News: UNHCR cites conflicting reports on Iraqi return figures

A UNHCR press release issued on Friday, December 7 explores some of the difficulties that agencies such as UNHCR face when reporting on refugee figures, and returns in particular - difficulties that can lead to the sometimes conflicting reports that get issued.

Part of the problem, according to the press release, is that not everyone being counted is a refugee:

[The number of returning refugees reported] includes all categories of Iraqis, including bus and taxi drivers, and not just refugees who returned for good. UNHCR does not have a 24-hour presence at the border and relies on various sources to estimate numbers.

Adding to the difficulty in understanding the current state of the refugee crisis are the many and varied reasons for which people return to Iraq. According to UNHCR spokesman William Spindler:

"UNHCR staff have spoken to a wide range of refugees before they left Syria, and some said they were returning because they believed that security had improved, while others said they had run out of resources and feared the winter period when the cost of living jumps. Others are leaving because they have outstayed their visas,"...

Some also wanted to arrive before the end of the year to enable their children to enrol in school, the spokesperson said, while adding that there was "a real concern among the returnees about longer-term security with many saying they are only returning to areas where they feel secure because of the local security arrangements in place."

The rest of the press release discusses other issues faced by refugees in Syria and Lebanon, many of which have been discussed previously on this blog, but it is well worth reading.

News: Iraq Says It Can't Handle Refugee Influx

While newspapers and magazines have been reporting encouraging stories about Iraqis being able to return home as a result of reduced violence, and the Iraqi Red Crescent reporting that 25,000 refugees have returned since September 15, the Associated Press is reporting that the Iraqi government has admitted that it is unprepared for a large influx of returning refugees, and that the US military fears that returning refugees could spark renewed sectarian violence.

The return of refugees is a politically charged issue in this country, where the embattled government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is eager to point to recent military gains against al-Qaida in Iraq and other militants as evidence that Iraq is now a relatively safe place.

But the U.S. military has warned that a massive return of refugees could rekindle sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites and that some returnees have found their Baghdad homes occupied by members of the other Muslim sect.

"In reality, the ministry cannot absorb a return on that (large) scale," Iraqi Migration Minister Abdul-Samad Rahman told a news conference. "If the influx is huge, then neither the ministry nor the entire government can handle it."

While the Iraqi government works to establish an effective method of resettlement for returning refugees, UNHCR has announced that it will provide over $11 million in aid for returning families

Announcing the $11.4 million relief package, Staffan De Mistura, the U.N. chief in Iraq, said the money would be spent on 5,000 vulnerable families, or about 30,000 people, returning to Iraq in response to declining violence.

The veteran Swedish diplomat said the program would include food baskets and other emergency kits. The money, he said, came from UNHCR and would supplement ongoing Iraqi government aid.

"It is not a massive return and the UNHCR is not encouraging a massive return due to the fragility of the (security) situation," De Mistura said. "At the same time, a flow is taking place and we need to show together that there is a proper response," he said.

Read the full story from the AP here.

In Focus: Beyond the spin about Iraqi refugees returning

Much has been made recently of stories like this one in the Associated Press and this AP story in the International Herald Tribune, both of which seem to demonstrate that reduced violence in Baghdad and other cities is encouraging Iraqi refugees to return.

The number of Iraqis returning to their country after fleeing abroad is growing, with more than 46,000 people coming home last month, an Iraqi government spokesman said Wednesday. Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, spokesman for the Baghdad security plan, said border crossings recorded 46,030 people returning to Iraq in October alone. He attributed the large number to the "improving security situation. "The level of terrorist operations has dropped in most of the capital's neighborhoods, due to the good performance of the armed forces," al-Moussawi told reporters in the heavily-guarded Green Zone.

But while violence may be down, a closer look reveals several other reasons why some Iraqis may be returning to their country. Seattle Post-Inquirer columnist Larry Johnson, who has just returned from a trip to the refugee camps in Syria, reports:

...members of the group I'm with, the Seattle chapter of the United Nations Association, were somewhat shocked to read an Associated Press story on the P-I Web site that talked about large numbers of Iraqi refugees heading back to Baghdad because it has become so much safer for them. I'm certain that not one of the many officials or Iraqi refugees we've interviewed would agree with that. In fact, after reading that story, I asked a prominent Iraqi doctor who is a refugee if he thought it was now safe enough for many Iraqi refugees to go home. He was incredulous. He said there was a small area near Mosul where it might be safer for refugees from that area to return. But, for the most part, the only reason anyone would go back would be because they had completely run out of money here in Syria. Of course, others have to go back to renew their visas under the new laws on Iraqi refugees in Syria.

The doctor, who didn't want his name used, said the daily violence and chaos in Iraq continues. He was anxious to go to any country that would take him. But he added something that I've heard often: Few countries are willing to accept Iraqi refugees.

The New York Times tells a similar story:

Long the only welcoming country in the region for Iraqi refugees, Syria has closed its borders to all but a small group of Iraqis and imposed new visa rules that will legally require the 1.5 million Iraqis currently in Syria to return to Iraq. [Emphasis added] The change quietly went into effect on Oct. 1. Syrian officials have often threatened to stem the flow of refugees over the past eight months, but until now have backed down after pleas from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. For more than a year, 2,000 to 4,000 Iraqis have fled into Syria every day, according to United Nations officials. On the last four days that the border remained open, the officials said, 25,000 Iraqis crossed into Syria.

A story from the AP describes how many Iraqi refugees, unable to work in their host countries, are finding that their money is running out:

Their money gone, Iman Faleh and her family packed their belongings to reluctantly return to Baghdad — a journey they said was like going to “death row.” The religiously mixed family — Iman is a Sunni Muslim, the others are Shiite Muslims — fled their home in a mostly Shiite part of east Baghdad in July and took refuge in Syria, joining an estimated 1.5 million other Iraqis here. But in early fall, they became part of a growing wave of Iraqis leaving Syria for home, not because they are confident of Iraq’s future, but because they ran out of money.

Across the border in Lebanon, tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees are facing the prospect of arrest or deportation:

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) puts the number of Iraqi refugees in Lebanon at 50,000 people, of whom only 8,476 are registered. Another 500 are being held in prison, it says, merely for violating immigration rules... Having not signed the UN’s Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, introduced in 1951, Lebanon does not grant asylum to refugees, despite the presence on its territory of more than 400,000 Palestinians. The overwhelming majority of Iraqi refugees and asylum seekers - 95 percent according to UNHCR figures - are smuggled into Lebanon across the porous border with Syria. Once inside, such Iraqis have no legal status, and lacking protection under international law, are subject to detention and deportation.

And things are little better for Iraq's internally displaced:

Scarce jobs and spiraling rents have made life even harder for displaced Iraqis and forced some women into prostitution, a migration watchdog has found. The problem has been made worse by the threat this month of a Turkish military incursion, which has swelled the numbers of Iraqis abandoning their homes in the north of the country. About 160,000 Iraqis have fled to three northern provinces since 2006, seeking shelter from sectarian violence, military operations and crime in other areas of Iraq, the International Organization for Migration's (IOM) Iraq mission said in a report seen by Reuters on Tuesday. The tide of displaced people has pushed up rents in northern cities like Arbil, and some have been evicted, [emphasis added] said Dana Graber, an Iraqi displacement specialist with the IOM.

Unfortunately, beyond the spin and misdirection, the immediacy of this crisis is not abating.