[Onthebarricades] IRAQ: Migration and refugees, Sept-Oct 2007

Sat Oct 6 18:04:20 PDT 2007

*  Iraqis top asylum figures for west

*  Migration reshapes Iraq's ethnoreligious demographics

*  Leaving Home by Riverbend

http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/news/opendoc.htm?tbl=NEWS&id=46f3b2652

Iraqis top latest asylum figures for industrialized countries

This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond - to whom quoted text may be attributed - at the press briefing, on 21 September 2007, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. 

The number of Iraqis applying for asylum in industrialized countries went up by 45 percent in the first half of 2007 compared to the previous six months, according to our latest quarterly statistical report on asylum trends in industrialized countries. The information is based on official information provided by governments.

Iraqis made some 19,800 asylum claims during the first six months of 2007 in the 36 industrialized countries included, an increase of 45 percent compared to the last six months of 2006, when 13,600 applications were received. The Iraqi number for the first six months is already approaching the total figure for all of 2006 - 22,200. Iraqis were the No. 1 nationality applying for asylum in industrialized countries in the first half of the year.

This latest figure, which reflect continuing violence in Iraq, are more than double those for the first six months of 2006, when a total of 8,500 asylum applications were submitted by Iraqis. If this trend is maintained, by the end of the year the number of Iraqi asylum seekers might reach over 40,000, the highest number since 2002.

Almost half of all Iraqi applications (some 9,300), were submitted in Sweden. The large Iraqi community in that country and its strong social network might account for the high number of Iraqi asylum seekers there. Greece registered some 3,500 asylum claims by Iraqis in the first half of this year, while Spain and Germany recorded 1,500 and 820 applications respectively.

When all nationalities applying for asylum are taken into account, the United States was by far the largest recipient of new asylum claims during the first six months of 2007. It had an estimated 26,800 applications, some 1,200 more than during the second semester of 2006. Sweden remained the second largest recipient of new asylum claims from all nationalities throughout the same period, with a total of 17,700 people applying for asylum.

Greece became the third most important destination for asylum seekers, with a record-high of 14,700 new asylum applications. In addition to reflecting an increase in new arrivals (particularly of Iraqi nationals), the figures also reflect special procedures introduced in late 2006 by the Greek authorities to clear a backlog of asylum applications.

France ranked fourth among the 36 industrialized countries with some 14,000 claims, followed by the United Kingdom (12,700), Canada (11,400), Germany (8,200), and Austria (5,700).

Over the past few years, the overall number of new asylum claims submitted in the 36 industrialized countries covered by UNHCR's report has decreased continuously. This trend, however, was reversed in the second half of 2006, when numbers started to rise. Assuming that current patterns remain unchanged, it can be expected that the total number of asylum claims lodged in industrialized countries in 2007 might be between 290,000 and 320,000, the first increase since 2001.

The main countries of origin of asylum applicants in the first six months of this year were Iraq (19,800), China (8,600), Pakistan (7,300), Serbia and Montenegro (7,200) and the Russian Federation (6,500).

You can find a press release with more information, as well as copies of the full report at the back of the room. The report ("Asylum Levels and Trends in Industrialized Countries, Second Quarter 2007,") can be found in our website.

Story date: 21 September 2007
UNHCR Briefing Notes 

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/19/africa/19displaced.php?WT.mc_id=rssfrontpage

Migration reshapes Iraq's sectarian landscape

By James Glanz and Alissa J. Rubin 

Published: September 18, 2007

BAGHDAD: A vast internal migration is radically reshaping Iraq's ethnic and sectarian landscape, according to new data collected by thousands of relief workers, but displacement in the most populous and mixed areas is surprisingly complex, suggesting that partitioning the country into semiautonomous Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish enclaves would not be easy.

The migration data, which are expected to be released this week by the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization but were given in advance to The New York Times, indicate that in Baghdad alone there are now nearly 170,000 families, accounting for almost a million people, that have fled their homes in search of security, shelter, water, electricity, functioning schools or jobs to support their families.

The figures show that many families move twice, three times or more, first fleeing immediate danger and then making more considered calculations based on the availability of city services or schools for their children. Finding neighbors of their own sect is just one of those considerations.

Over all, the patterns suggest that despite the ethnic and sectarian animosity that has gripped the country, at least some Iraqis would rather continue to live in mixed communities.

The Red Crescent compiled the figures from reports filed as recently as the end of August by tens of thousands of relief workers scattered across all parts of Iraq who are straining to provide aid for an estimated 280,000 families swept up nationwide in an enormous and complex migration.

A bird's-eye view of the data suggests that since the bombing of a revered Shiite mosque in February 2006 triggered severe sectarian strife, Sunnis generally have been moving north and west, Shiites south, and Christians to the far north. But the picture in the mixed and highly populous center of the country is, if anything, becoming more complicated.

It is this mixed population center, the often violent interface between more homogeneous Sunni and Shiite regions, that some advocates of partition have suggested would separate into more homogeneous areas as Iraqis seek safety among members of their own sects.

But the new figures show that the migration is not neatly dividing Baghdad along the Tigris, separating Sunnis who live predominantly on the west bank from Shiites, who live predominantly on the east. Instead, some Sunnis are moving to the predominantly Shiite side of the river, into neighborhoods that are relatively secular, mixed and where services are better, according to Red Crescent staff.

Just last week within Baghdad itself, a Sunni tribe of 250 families that lived in Dora, one of the most violent neighborhoods, was forced to flee. Rather than going to an area where they would be with others of their sect, they went to their neighbors to the south, in Abu Dshir, a Shiite area. They were welcomed by the local tribe and given places to stay in people's homes, according to field staff both for the Red Crescent and the International Office for Migration, an intergovernmental agency.

Still, some poor Iraqis, for example those fleeing ethnic cleansing by Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia in villages in the eastern province of Diyala, make the only choice available to them: head for Baghdad and stop in one of the refugee camps on the fringes of the city amid the other desperately poor.

The size and scope of the migration has elicited deep concern on the part of aid officials. Relief workers "have a mammoth task to alleviate the sufferings of this vast number of Iraqis," a draft report on the Red Crescent figures says.

Although Iraqis of every income level, sect, ethnicity and region of the country have been caught up in this migration, perhaps the most tragic consequences turn up where enormous numbers of poor Iraqi villagers have collected in camps, shantytowns and urban slums after leaving behind almost everything they owned, said Dr. Said Hakki, a physician who is the president of the Red Crescent.

"It's tragic, absolutely tragic," Hakki said. "I have been a surgeon all my life, and I have seen death many times; that never scared me, never shook me. But when I saw the toll here in Iraq," he said, referring to the groups of displaced people, "that definitely shook me."

"How could a human let human beings suffer so much for so long?" Hakki said.

A jump in the recorded number of displaced people toward the end of the summer led the Red Crescent to delay releasing the report for about 10 days as the organization checked and double-checked the figures, Hakki said.

But he said that the figures, based on data collected in 130 branch offices, including 43 in Baghdad, by about 95,000 Red Crescent volunteers and a smaller number of regular employees, survived the scrutiny.

The Red Crescent figures, which are collected periodically, have broadly been consistent with data assembled by the International Organization for Migration, which is affiliated with the United Nations and collects its data from the Iraqi government and other sources.

But when contacted about the politically delicate findings in the latest Red Crescent report, a spokesman for the Ministry of Displacement and Migration, which tracks internal displacement for the government, said he believed that the figures were too high.

"The Red Crescent Organization, and even other international organizations, we don't consider their statistics to be official," said the spokesman, Sattar Nowroz.

Nowroz repeated the government's oft-stated claim that thousands of families have returned to their homes after the start of a new Iraqi security plan that is running concurrently with an American troop increase.

But figures at both the Red Crescent and the Organization of Migration have previously shown that the numbers of internally displaced Iraqis has soared since the troop increase began. Nowroz conceded that the migration ministry had just 600 employees nationwide to track displaced people.

The ministry tracks only displaced people who come forward voluntarily and pass a series of bureaucratic hurdles involving paperwork at a minimum of three different government offices, Nowroz said.

Red Crescent workers point to a number of trends during the summer that contributed to the increased numbers that their organization is seeing in Baghdad.

Fighting in Diyala set people on the roads, fleeing the ongoing military operations by the American military against extremist Sunni Arab fighters. People who had fled to Jordan and Syria began to return because both countries began to enforce visa requirements for Iraqis who wanted to stay.

Sunnis also began to flee their homes because of the clashes between the Awakening movements, groups of Sunni Arab tribesmen who banded together to fight Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown extremist group which American intelligence sources believe has foreign leadership.

Iraqis considering just when to return from abroad may also have chosen the end of summer because school was approaching and some neighborhoods have seen reduced violence with the increased American troop presence. But when the Iraqis return, they often find that their homes have been looted or occupied, and they join the rolls of displaced people.

"Not all of this is because of the unsecure situation," said Mazin Salloum, secretary general of the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization.

In Baghdad, many of the displacements measured by the Red Crescent are secondary or tertiary. Many people have already moved once and the statistics are reflecting their second or, in some cases, their third move. While the fear of sectarian violence or of being caught in ongoing military operations motivates people to make their initial move, it is the desire for better living conditions that drives them to make subsequent ones. Some people first go to relatives in areas outside Baghdad, but then migrate back into the city as they search for jobs, and for more access to electricity, water and schools.

"It's like sea waves, tides that come in and out," said Laith Abdul Aziz, the Red Crescent's disaster manager for Iraq, who has been displaced himself.

"All this data will be reversed," he said. "Winter is coming and those who have migrated to villages will come back to where there is good shelter, roofs that don't leak, fuel, food."

But some of the poorest displaced do not have even those choices. The Boob Sham camp, run by the Red Crescent Organization, sits forlornly on a swath of scrub desert that was once the site of an Iraqi Army barracks bombed by the Americans in 2003.

Opened in northeastern Baghdad in June for 17 Shiite families of the Anbekia tribe who were fleeing Diyala, it now has 52 families, and two of them just arrived Monday. Most live in tents but a few families have one room shelters made of mud mixed with hay.

Farmers and village tradesmen, they fled when gunmen from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia began a systematic sweep of their area. Hadi Hassan, 39, who came here with 13 family members, said six villages of the Anbekia tribe had already been emptied, including his.

He heard from neighbors that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia blew up his house after he left. Now the militants were continuing their cleansing, and another four villages of the tribe were under pressure. The families were poor before they fled, but because most of them had no time to pack their belongings, they are even poorer now.

Hassan's family was one of those. He loaded his wife and children into his car and drove to Baghdad because he has two sisters living here, but when he arrived he found that each had a one-room house for their families; there was no room for his.

Since he arrived he has had to sell his car - he got $1,500 for it - because he needed to feed his family of six and he wanted to help the other seven relatives who fled with him, who are all women and children. Three of his sons stared shyly at the Red Crescent staff members; a fourth was nursing at Hassan's wife's breast. "Please help our men find a job," she said.

The children traced designs with their plastic sandals in the shelter's earthen floor and then stood in silence in the doorway staring at the open scrubland. "They remember their home, they remember climbing our date palms and eating the fruit right from the tree," Hassan said. "But here. ..."

His voice trailed off, and he gestured at the scrub that lay just outside and shook his head. "No trees."

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#828763212765794127#828763212765794127

Leaving Home...

Two months ago, the suitcases were packed. My lone, large suitcase sat in my
bedroom for nearly six weeks, so full of clothes and personal items, that it
took me, E. and our six year old neighbor to zip it closed.

Packing that suitcase was one of the more difficult things I've had to do.
It was Mission Impossible: Your mission, R., should you choose to accept it
is to go through the items you've accumulated over nearly three decades and
decide which ones you cannot do without. The difficulty of your mission, R.,
is that you must contain these items in a space totaling 1 m by 0.7 m by 0.4
m. This, of course, includes the clothes you will be wearing for the next
months, as well as any personal memorabilia- photos, diaries, stuffed
animals, CDs and the like. 

I packed and unpacked it four times. Each time I unpacked it, I swore I'd
eliminate some of the items that were not absolutely necessary. Each time I
packed it again, I would add more 'stuff' than the time before. E. finally
came in a month and a half later and insisted we zip up the bag so I
wouldn't be tempted to update its contents constantly.

The decision that we would each take one suitcase was made by my father. He
took one look at the box of assorted memories we were beginning to prepare
and it was final: Four large identical suitcases were purchased- one for
each member of the family and a fifth smaller one was dug out of a closet
for the documentation we'd collectively need- graduation certificates,
personal identification papers, etc.

We waited. and waited. and waited. It was decided we would leave mid to late
June- examinations would be over and as we were planning to leave with my
aunt and her two children- that was the time considered most convenient for
all involved. The day we finally appointed as THE DAY, we woke up to an
explosion not 2 km away and a curfew. The trip was postponed a week. The
night before we were scheduled to travel, the driver who owned the GMC that
would take us to the border excused himself from the trip- his brother had
been killed in a shooting. Once again, it was postponed.

There was one point, during the final days of June, where I simply sat on my
packed suitcase and cried. By early July, I was convinced we would never
leave. I was sure the Iraqi border was as far away, for me, as the borders
of Alaska. It had taken us well over two months to decide to leave by car
instead of by plane. It had taken us yet another month to settle on Syria as
opposed to Jordan. How long would it take us to reschedule leaving?

It happened almost overnight. My aunt called with the exciting news that one
of her neighbors was going to leave for Syria in 48 hours because their son
was being threatened and they wanted another family on the road with them in
another car- like gazelles in the jungle, it's safer to travel in groups. It
was a flurry of activity for two days. We checked to make sure everything we
could possibly need was prepared and packed. We arranged for a distant
cousin of my moms who was to stay in our house with his family to come the
night before we left (we can't leave the house empty because someone might
take it).

It was a tearful farewell as we left the house. One of my other aunts and an
uncle came to say goodbye the morning of the trip. It was a solemn morning
and I'd been preparing myself for the last two days not to cry. You won't
cry, I kept saying, because you're coming back. You won't cry because it's
just a little trip like the ones you used to take to Mosul or Basrah before
the war. In spite of my assurances to myself of a safe and happy return, I
spent several hours before leaving with a huge lump lodged firmly in my
throat. My eyes burned and my nose ran in spite of me. I told myself it was
an allergy.

We didn't sleep the night before we had to leave because there seemed to be
so many little things to do. It helped that there was no electricity at all-
the area generator wasn't working and 'national electricity' was hopeless.
There just wasn't time to sleep.

The last few hours in the house were a blur. It was time to go and I went
from room to room saying goodbye to everything. I said goodbye to my desk-
the one I'd used all through high school and college. I said goodbye to the
curtains and the bed and the couch. I said goodbye to the armchair E. and I
broke when we were younger. I said goodbye to the big table over which we'd
gathered for meals and to do homework. I said goodbye to the ghosts of the
framed pictures that once hung on the walls, because the pictures have long
since been taken down and stored away- but I knew just what hung where. I
said goodbye to the silly board games we inevitably fought over- the Arabic
Monopoly with the missing cards and money that no one had the heart to throw
away.

I knew then as I know now that these were all just items- people are so much
more important. Still, a house is like a museum in that it tells a certain
history. You look at a cup or stuffed toy and a chapter of memories opens up
before your very eyes. It suddenly hit me that I wanted to leave so much
less than I thought I did.

Six AM finally came. The GMC waited outside while we gathered the
necessities- a thermos of hot tea, biscuits, juice, olives (olives?!) which
my dad insisted we take with us in the car, etc. My aunt and uncle watched
us sorrowfully. There's no other word to describe it. It was the same look I
got in my eyes when I watched other relatives and friends prepare to leave.
It was a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness, tinged with anger. Why
did the good people have to go?

I cried as we left- in spite of promises not to. The aunt cried. the uncle
cried. My parents tried to be stoic but there were tears in their voices as
they said their goodbyes. The worst part is saying goodbye and wondering if
you're ever going to see these people again. My uncle tightened the shawl
I'd thrown over my hair and advised me firmly to 'keep it on until you get
to the border'. The aunt rushed out behind us as the car pulled out of the
garage and dumped a bowl of water on the ground, which is a tradition- its
to wish the travelers a safe return. eventually.

The trip was long and uneventful, other than two checkpoints being run by
masked men. They asked to see identification, took a cursory glance at the
passports and asked where we were going. The same was done for the car
behind us. Those checkpoints are terrifying but I've learned that the best
technique is to avoid eye-contact, answer questions politely and pray under
your breath. My mother and I had been careful not to wear any apparent
jewelry, just in case, and we were both in long skirts and head scarves.

Syria is the only country, other than Jordan, that was allowing people in
without a visa. The Jordanians are being horrible with refugees. Families
risk being turned back at the Jordanian border, or denied entry at Amman
Airport. It's too high a risk for most families.

We waited for hours, in spite of the fact that the driver we were with had
'connections', which meant he'd been to Syria and back so many times, he
knew all the right people to bribe for a safe passage through the borders. I
sat nervously at the border. The tears had stopped about an hour after we'd
left Baghdad. Just seeing the dirty streets, the ruins of buildings and
houses, the smoke-filled horizon all helped me realize how fortunate I was
to have a chance for something safer.

By the time we were out of Baghdad, my heart was no longer aching as it had
been while we were still leaving it. The cars around us on the border were
making me nervous. I hated being in the middle of so many possibly explosive
vehicles. A part of me wanted to study the faces of the people around me,
mostly families, and the other part of me, the one that's been trained to
stay out of trouble the last four years, told me to keep my eyes to myself-
it was almost over.

It was finally our turn. I sat stiffly in the car and waited as money passed
hands; our passports were looked over and finally stamped. We were ushered
along and the driver smiled with satisfaction, "It's been an easy trip,
Alhamdulillah," he said cheerfully.

As we crossed the border and saw the last of the Iraqi flags, the tears
began again. The car was silent except for the prattling of the driver who
was telling us stories of escapades he had while crossing the border. I
sneaked a look at my mother sitting beside me and her tears were flowing as
well. There was simply nothing to say as we left Iraq. I wanted to sob, but
I didn't want to seem like a baby. I didn't want the driver to think I was
ungrateful for the chance to leave what had become a hellish place over the
last four and a half years.

The Syrian border was almost equally packed, but the environment was more
relaxed. People were getting out of their cars and stretching. Some of them
recognized each other and waved or shared woeful stories or comments through
the windows of the cars. Most importantly, we were all equal. Sunnis and
Shia, Arabs and Kurds. we were all equal in front of the Syrian border
personnel.

We were all refugees- rich or poor. And refugees all look the same- there's
a unique expression you'll find on their faces- relief, mixed with sorrow,
tinged with apprehension. The faces almost all look the same.

The first minutes after passing the border were overwhelming. Overwhelming
relief and overwhelming sadness. How is it that only a stretch of several
kilometers and maybe twenty minutes, so firmly segregates life from death?

How is it that a border no one can see or touch stands between car bombs,
militias, death squads and. peace, safety? It's difficult to believe- even
now. I sit here and write this and wonder why I can't hear the explosions.

I wonder at how the windows don't rattle as the planes pass overhead. I'm
trying to rid myself of the expectation that armed people in black will
break through the door and into our lives. I'm trying to let my eyes grow
accustomed to streets free of road blocks, hummers and pictures of Muqtada
and the rest.

How is it that all of this lies a short car ride away?

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