Iraq: The World's Fastest Growing Refugee Crisis

MayorBob.

Posted to Etcetera on Mon Dec 11, 2006 at 05:44:33 AM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.

The Iraq Study Group (ISG) has done its work and filed its report with George Bush and we'll be discussing it for sometime to come.  But, lost among the hoopla surrounding the ISG's magnum opus another report on Iraq got released recently reporting on what is "quickly becoming the largest" refugee crisis in the world.

The Washington, DC-based humanitarian group Refugees International is responsible for the report with the self-explanatory title, "Iraq: The World's Fastest Growing Refugee Crisis."  The report concludes: the violence in Iraq has "reached a tipping point" with most Iraqis feeling threatened; neighboring countries are being "overwhelmed" by the influx of Iraqi refugees; the UN High Commissioner for Refugees doesn't have the resources to cope with the crisis; and the situation for Palestinian refugees from Iraq is equally bleak.

The population of Iraq was estimated at just over 26 million in July of 2005.  The Refugees International report estimated that the war had already produced 2.3 million refugees (1.8 million having fled to neighboring countries and 500,000 refugees within Iraq).  It also estimated that 100,000 Iraqis leave the country each month.  Particularly hard pressed is Iraq's next door neighbor, Jordan, already the location of about 500,000 Iraqi refugees.  The Iraqi refugee problem has been a a reality for some time and has led other human rights organizations to ask that Washington and London do something to solve the situation.  The world's refugee population had been on the decline briefly at the beginning of this decade.  2005 proved to be a year when the trend began rising again, most of it attributable to the Iraqi refugee upswing.

The report recommends that the world realize how profound the crisis is and calls for the active participation of the UN to try to resolve it.  Refugees International president Kenneth Bacon said "the United States and its allies sparked the current chaos in Iraq, but they are doing little to ease the humanitarian crisis caused by the current exodus."  A State Department spokesman said they have funded a program aimed at assisting "the most vulnerable Iraqis" in Jordan and Syria.  It was noted that many of Iraq's neighbors have shown "great generosity" to Iraqi refugees and the US continues "to call on them to provide temporary asylum" to refugees.  State's total worldwide budget for humanitarian refugee assistance (pdf doc) this year is about just over (US)$832 million and is a decrease from close to the $900 million budgeted in 2005.