In the News
UN survey finds few Iraqi refugees plan to return
International Herald Tribune/AP - 4/29/2008
Welcome wears thin as refugees swamp Swedish town of "Little Iraq"
Times Online - 4/19/2008
No Priority for Christian Iraqi Refugees: EU Presidency
Reuters - 4/19/2008
Blog
Iraqi Refugee Crisis in NYT Op-ed
The International Rescue Committee has a great op-ed in the New York Times today. The organization sent a high-level delegation to Syria and Jordan in February to meet with Iraqi refugees, leaders in both nations, and U.S. and UN officials in order to assess the crisis firsthand. The op-ed suggests, and we agree strongly, that a comprehensive plan to deal with this long-term crisis must be a part...
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Iraqi Refugee Stories
"My life is being wasted here."
From the small city of Kut in the south of Iraq, "Mirah," now 27, was working on a degree in English at her local university when the U.S.entered Iraq in 2003. Read Mirah's story.
Take Action
Urge President Bush to Acknowledge and Address the Iraqi Refugee Crisis
March 19 is the five-year anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq. More than four million Iraqis have fled their homes. That’s one out of every seven Iraqis – the equivalent of 42 million Americans displaced in the United States. The U.S. and international media are increasingly reporting on this humanitarian disaster. The Wall Street Journal, on Monday, published a front page story on the crisis. Yet our own President has yet to even publicly acknowledge it.
Send President Bush a copy of the Wall Street Journal article and tell him that it’s past time to pay attention to Iraq’s more than four million refugees.
Are We Doing Enough?
The U.S. set a FY 2008 goal of admitting 12,000 Iraqi refugees by September 30, 2008
Click here to view complete data from FY 05 to FY 08
Source: U.S. Dept. of State - Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration - Office of Admissions - Refugee Processing Center
The Iraqi Refugee Crisis
Human Rights First is working to secure a comprehensive response to the Iraqi refugee crisis. We ask the United States to bring some of the most vulnerable refugees to safety through a major resettlement initiative and to lead the international community in providing aid for refugees and those displaced within Iraq.
751 Iraqi Refugees Resettled in March
April 2, 2008 -- According to data released yesterday by the Refugee Processing Center, the United States resettled 751 Iraqi refugees in March. That brings the total number of Iraqi refugees resettled this fiscal year to 2,627. Human Rights First is pleased to see the increase in resettlement, although the number of refugees resettled by the U.S. is still dwarfed by the need. We ask the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration to dramatically increase the pace of Iraqi refugee resettlement in the remaining six months of fiscal year 2008, and to set an Iraqi resettlement goal for FY 2009 that is more commensurate with the significant need. PRM will need to resettle an additional 9,370 refugees by September in order to meet its FY 2008 target of bringing 12,000 Iraqis to safety in the U.S.