IRAQI REFUGEES

Under international refugee law, a collective responsibility to share the burden of a refugee crisis is held by all states in the wider international community. Such an obligation attaches directly to states party to the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (Refugee Convention). As clearly stated in the Convention's preamble, "the grant of asylum may place unduly heavy burdens on certain countries, and that a satisfactory solution of a problem of which the United Nations has recognized the international scope and nature cannot therefore be achieved without international co-operation".

From Millions in flight: the Iraqi refugee crisis (Amnesty International, Sept. 2007)

The UK has been a signatory to the Refugee Convention since 1954, so it might be interesting to see how it is sharing the 'burden' of the current refugee crisis in Iraq. Doubly interesting to see the UK's record, since this country was one of the countries most directly responsible for creating the burden in the first place; and triply interesting because the attack which precipitated the crisis was supposed to be an attack in the name of human rights, an attack to save the human rights of ordinary Iraqis. If it really had been, then we should be no less concerned today than we were yesterday about the human rights of those Iraqis who, 6 years ago, were suffering under Saddam in their own homes; and today are languishing in slums or refugee camps, quite probably with no home to go back to (if they are alive at all).

It is worth noting, too, that a 'burden' is, of course, not merely a weight: a burden becomes more or less onerous depending on the ability of a bearer to carry it. Jordan and Syria - the two countries which have born the brunt of the refugee burden - have GDPs 70 and 30 times less, respectively, than that of the UK, and large sections of their populations live in poverty. The UK is a bloated western European country which can manage to find £7.4 billion ($15 billion) over 4 years to occupy a country and blast a people and their homes to smithereens. Of course - and notwithstanding the bloat of the UK war chest - the UK should still find it considerably less 'burdensome' than Syria or Jordan to take in people from that broken land.

The burden of 4.4 million

So how many people have been forced to leave the broken land? UNHCR estimates that since we broke it up, more than 4.4 million Iraqis have left their homes: 2.2 million of them are displaced internally (IDPs), and 2.2 million - at least - have fled to neighbouring states, particularly Syria and Jordan. A further 60,000 people every month continue to leave Iraq in search of a life that is tolerable.

How many has the bloated UK taken in? Well, according to the UNHRC, 'Statistics provided by the UK government to UNHCR show that in 2006, of the 735 decisions made on Iraqi claims, only 85 were positive'.

We took in 85 last year. You can imagine how that helped relieve the burden of 4.4 million.

What did we do with the rest of them? Well, according to Amnesty International 'The UK has been one of the key players in forcible returns of Iraqis. Among European states, the UK has returned the most Iraqis, sending them to the Kurdish-controlled north, which they regard as "sufficiently stable for returns"1.

In other words, we send them back to where they came from. Back to the war zone. Amnesty International 'has also been informed that other flights are planned to forcibly return further Iraqi rejected asylum-seekers'2.

To safeguard their human rights, no doubt.

The burden of $2 billion a year

What about the financial burden of the crisis? How much is it costing Syria and Jordan to cope with this enormous influx, to provide 2 million people without homes with enough to subsist in a foreign land?

In April at the UNHCR-convened conference, the Jordanian delegation stated that supporting the Iraqi community was costing the country an estimated US$1 billion a year... The Syrian representative also highlighted the economic, social and security impact on Syria, and stated that approximately US$257 million was needed in direct financial assistance to continue providing humanitarian, health and educational services over the next two years. More recently, the Syrian authorities have stated that the cost of hosting Iraqi refugees also stands at US$1 billion a year.3

And is the UK helping?

The United Kingdom (UK), whose forces actively participated in the US-led invasion, has contributed US$3.23 million to UNHCR's supplementary programme and approximately US$20.3 million to humanitarian agencies operating in Iraq and the region, including the UNHCR since January 2007

Bless us. Blessed Britain.

See this page for more nuggets on the Iraqi refugees

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1. 1. From Millions in flight: the Iraqi refugee crisis
2. 2. op.cit.
3. 3. op.cit.