About three weeks ago, I chatted with an Iraqi friend who currently lives in Amman, Jordan and formerly worked with the Iraqi government. I wanted to hear his thoughts on Syria effectively closing its border, and in particular why the Iraqi government had met with the Syrians and requested they stop freely admitting refugees.
Read “Syria Shuts Main Exit From War for Iraqis” in the NYT. “You know Amelia” he said “lately there is an effort by all parties to encourage the idea of return.”
Three weeks later, the news is splashed across T.V., print, and radio media: Iraqis are going home by the tens of thousands. The less thoughtful pieces focus exclusively on improved security, tearful women, and joyful reunions. The more responsible detail the range of pressures forcing people back to Iraq — expired visas that can’t be renewed, depleted savings and lack of access to employment, health care, and services in Syria and Jordan.
Listen to an excellent piece by NPR reporter Deb Amos.
Estimates of how many refugees have returned have varied widely. The Iraqi government’s estimate -- 60,000 in October and November -- reportedly included every Iraqi who crossed the border, whether or not they were refugees or traveling for other reasons. The Iraqi Red Crescent, which provides aid to the internally displaced, has estimated the number of returnees is only 25,000.
Troublingly, the Iraqi government is aggressively encouraging refugees to return, providing cash incentives of more than $800 to families that return to their original homes and organizing free bus trips. Six months ago, in a sober article in "Forced Migration Review," the Iraqi Minister of Displacement and Migration argued against this same approach. He noted that his ministry lacked experience and expertise and said "under current circumstances, it is necessary to refrain from encouraging refugees outside Iraq to return and demand the restitution of their property."
All the other significant players have responded to the news with caution. The UN Refugee Agency has publicly stated that the security situation remains volatile and that return, while always the right of a refugee, should not be encouraged.
According to the New York Times, senior members of General
Petraeus’ staff have cautioned that that the Iraqi government has no capacity to assist returning refugees and that their presence could undermine security. And James Foley, the new special coordinator for Iraqi refugees, has expressed concern that it is not improved security but a variety of push factors that are driving refugees out of Syria and back to Iraq.
Where does
HRF stand? Before celebrating the return of a small percentage of Iraqi refugees we have to ask three questions: Are the returns voluntary, are improvements in security widespread and long term, and does Iraq have a plan for what to do with the returnees?
On the question of how voluntary the returns really are,
the UN refugee agency interviewed 110 returning Iraqis and found that most (70 %) had run out of money or were pressured to leave because their visas had expired. This morning I got word that a friend in Syria who has been awaiting resettlement for two years is on the verge of eviction and is eating only once a day. The State department’s Special Coordinator for Iraqi Refugees, James Foley, gave a grim assessment of the situation at a recent briefing:
…there are push factors at work as well. I alluded to this, the fact that the
refugees we were able to observe are increasingly depleting their resources and
some also are out of status and concerned about their ability to stay on in
countries of asylum. And so, as I said, there is a push factor pushing them back
into the country.
On the question of security, attacks and casualties are down, and I’
ve heard anecdotal reports from Iraqis that civilians in Baghdad do feel much safer. The improvements in security are impressive, particularly in light of the fact that roughly fifty percent of Iraqi refugees fled Baghdad. But there are looming questions about how sustainable these gains are, given that sectarian tensions and broader political conflicts have not been resolved. In the past year violence and displacement have brutally remade Baghdad’s neighborhoods into single-sect enclaves. Part of the strategy of the surge was to wall these neighborhoods off from each other, a strategy called “an urban tourniquet” by one of its architects. Militias such as the
Jesh al Mehdi, which are laying low for the moment, are still powerful.
The UN refugee agency maintains that the security situation is volatile and unpredictable, and I agree.
And few reports have examined the situation outside of Baghdad. A recent BBC report suggests that Iraq’s second largest city, Basra, is dominated by militias and plagued by “murderous” police.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7124042.stm In
Kirkuk, the security situation is extremely tenuous and sectarian and ethnic tensions are running high over a delayed referendum on the fate of the city. Significant numbers of refugees in Syria and Jordan have come from cities in Iraq like Basra and
Kirkuk that show no improvement in security at all.
Finally, the Iraqi government has no organized plan in place to settle property disputes or provide aid. It seems likely that many of the returnees will add to the miserable ranks of the internally displaced, who already number more than 2 million. One last piece of bad news—the famously inept and slippery Ahmed
Chalabi has been placed in charge of providing services to those who return.
