Baghdad (AsiaNews) – About 800 Iraqis are travelling in a convoy of buses provided by the Iraqi government. The authorities said that these refugees are coming home because of improves security, especially in the capital, which they had fled fearing for their lives. By contrast, humanitarian groups are reporting that many Iraqi refugees are returning because of increasingly hard economic conditions in their host country.
A few weeks after the authorities announced a drop in attacks in Baghdad, Iraq’s immigration ministry released encouraging data on returns. Figures show that about a thousand people are coming home a day. For them the government has planned incentives, including free transportation.
In order to encourage internally displaced people, the authorities are also offering US$ 800 for every family willing to go back to their own home. So far some 4,700 families have heeded the call and another 8,500 are on a waiting list.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said however that most of the refugees are returning because they have run out of money or have been unable to renew their visas.
This is confirmed by the fact that the reverse refugee flow is significant in Syria, where conditions for refugees have worsened, but only marginal in Jordan.
According to the UNHCR, there are about four million Iraqi refugees. About 1.4 million are in Syria alone, followed by Jordan with 750,000. Another 200,000 are in the Gulf States; 100,000 in Egypt; 54,000 in Iran; 40,000 in Lebanon, and 10,000 in Turkey. In Iraq itself there are two million internally displaced people.
Since 2003, 44 per cent of Iraqi asylum seekers in Syria have been Christian.
Many refugee families live in single, overcrowded rooms.
Young people and able-bodied men have a hard time finding work and must rely on help from family members who made it to the West.
