The Two Witnesses

Me114 · Overcomer Joined: 14 Feb 2007 Posts: 134

Exodus from Iraq: The Refugee Problem
http://www.voanews.com/english/newsanalysis/exodusiraq2007-02-14-voa12.cfm?rss=war%20and%20conflict

By Aida Akl
Washington, D.C.
12 February 2007

A steady exodus of thousands of refugees from Iraq is placing a tremendous burden on host countries in the Middle East and is threatening to become a major humanitarian crisis.

War and turmoil have forced thousands of Iraqis to flee their homeland in the region's largest refugee crisis since 1948, when tens-of thousands of Palestinians fled from what was historic Palestine to what is now Israel.

According to the United Nations, up to two-million Iraqis have taken refuge in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Egypt, with nearly 3,000 people leaving Iraq every month. Most of the refugees are in Jordan and Syria, with more than 800,000 each. Within Iraq, an additional 1.8-million people have relocated to safer towns and nearly 50,000 are forced from their homes every month.

Some of the refugees left Iraq with enough money to start over. Many sold all of their belonging to escape the ongoing sectarian and political violence. But by most accounts, the majority of refugees are destitute and in need of humanitarian assistance.

Iraq in Crisis

According to Fawaz Gerges of New York's Sarah Lawrence College, this highlights the collapse of Iraqi society.

"If Iraqis [could] afford to leave, 70 percent of the Iraqi population would leave Iraq today. And what this tells you is that the refugee crisis reflects the breakdown of one of the wealthiest Arab societies. Tens-of-thousands, if not hundreds-of-thousands, of Arab workers from Syria and Jordan and Egypt and Lebanon traveled to Iraq to make a living and [came] back and [built] a life. Now, the Syrians and the Jordanians and the Lebanese are seeing a population with no hope, no future," says Gerges.

Many experts stress that Jordan and Syria, both poor nations with few resources, have been very accommodating despite the pressures Iraqi refugees have placed on their infrastructures and educational and health systems. Marina Ottaway of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington says both nations have adapted well.

"What is very striking so far is that Syria has been able to absorb these refugees without visible signs of stress. There is no indication, for example, that the country's infrastructure is collapsing as a result. And there are great similarities in Jordan. There are complaints about housing prices going up and so on. But so far, these countries have done amazingly well in adapting themselves to the inflow of refugees," says Otawway.

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