The Iraq Refugees

Iraq Refugees: Seeking Safety

December 2010 - Renewed violence in Iraq and the attack on the Baghdad Catholic cathedral at the beginning of November have drawn new attention to a largely forgotten problem: refugees. Forced to seek shelter in neighbouring states, millions want to know where their future lies.

Four million refugees have fled Iraq since the invasion of March 2003. Most are in the Middle East, a region which is now home to more than a third of the world's refugees.

These numbers are now bound to grow as Iraq's Nestorian or Assyrian Christians - nearly half a million - are increasingly targeted by insurgents. Jordan already provides shelter for over one million Palestinians and Syria nearly half that number. Crucially, despite the tolerance of their hosts, Iraqis' recent refuge in the neighbouring countries of Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon is rapidly becoming a protracted crisis. Unwilling to return and largely unable to emigrate further west or north, Iraq's refugees are in a perilous situation which needs to be recognised and addressed by the western powers whose military action created this humanitarian crisis.

Off Guard

In the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the western powers prepared for one million Iraqi 'refugees' to flee their country. Camps were set up to receive those who might try to escape the conflict. However, six months after the fall of the Baghdad regime, few Iraqis had actually fled. The international aid authorities had miscalculated the response to the invasion; the empty emergency camps were dismantled and pre-positioned food and equipment removed.

Three years later in 2006 the west was caught off-guard as hundreds of thousands of Iraqis fled to escape the deadly sectarian violence which had escalated with the Al-Askari Mosque bombing in Samarra that February. That single event became the iconic image of sectarian violence and the separation of communities which followed.

Nearly four million Iraqis fled in 2006 and 2007 with one to one and a half million crossing national borders into Syria and Jordan. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and affiliated non-governmental organisations raced to set up reception centres and provide emergency aid. {read rest}