NGO renews calls for assistance for Iraqi refugees

A leading NGO dealing with the plight of Iraqi refugees living in Iran has renewed its calls to the international community for urgently needed assistance to thousands living in squalid and destitute conditions. "There is no real humanitarian work being done for these people in Iran," Khadijet Ak Kubra's director, Sami Mahdi, told IRIN in the Iranian capital, Tehran. "Not even one percent of these people's needs are being fulfilled," he complained. Since 1991, the Iranian-based NGO, run by Iraqi refugees themselves, has worked primarily to provide food assistance to thousands of non-camp refugees living in southwestern Iran, most of whom are Arab marshland people. Mahdi explained there were an estimated 202,000 Iraqi refugees dispersed throughout Iran, but mainly concentrated in areas bordering their homeland. Only ten percent of this group live in organised camps, he added. According to a report by the US Committee for Refugees, most refugees have been in Iran since the 1980s, with many of them being expelled from their homeland purportedly for being of Iranian ancestry. The two largest groups, Iraqi Shi'a Arabs congregate along Iran's southwestern border, while Iraqi Kurds are mostly found in the northeast. Mahdi added many refugees could also be found living in the larger Iranian urban areas such as Tehran, Qom and Mashad. Khadijet Ak Kubra maintains that over the past 23 years, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees have entered Iran, particularly during the eight-year war period between the two countries between 1980 and 1988. A large proportion of them have subsequently migrated to western countries in Europe and abroad. "There was no other way for them to survive than to leave," Mahdi said. The NGO director maintained that approximately 50 percent of Iraqi refugees in Iran today were in fact born in Iran, yet continue to face insurmountable obstacles in sustaining themselves. "This should be clear from the laws and regulations we have to live under," he explained. In terms of legal status, the US Committee for Refugees says most Iraqi refugees in Iran carry green cards which are essentially the same as the blue cards issued to Afghan refugees. Such cards do not use the word for refugees, "panahandegan", but rather the term for involuntary migrants, "mohageren". A few Iraqi refugees, including those who arrived in the pre-revolutionary period before 1980, carry an actual refugee document, a white booklet, which uses the word for refugees. In some respects, the white booklet provides greater rights and benefits than green cards, including exemption from taxes, the right to work, and the right to obtain travel documents under international conventions, but it also requires its holders to renew their status every three months and to report their movement and residence to the authorities. Since the Islamic revolution, Tehran has continued to issue such white cards irregularly, mostly to highly educated individuals and established professionals, the report added. But according to Mahdi, the outside world has yet to fully understand the difficulties facing his people, maintaining Iraqis can neither legally work in Iran to provide for their families, nor repatriate safely to their homeland under the current regime there. "Iranians themselves are suffering from unemployment so you can imagine what its like for refugees in the country," he explained. As for returning to Iraq he said under the current regime that was simply not an option: "Repatriation for many of us is equal to death. I myself would be hung if I returned," he claimed. Reiterating his call on the donor community to fully recognise the difficult living conditions being faced, he noted the international community should help the Iraqi refugees so as to prevent further emigration to western Europe and beyond. "It's better to improve their situation here so that when the situation inside Iraq stabilises, they can easily return back. The problem is political in nature and when that issue is resolved, I'm sure they [Iraqi refugees] will want to return." Asked whether he expected another influx of refugees in the event of a US-led strike on Iraq, he dismissed the thought saying: "They are talking about 150,000 coming, but I don't believe it. Up to 10,000 may come, but no more," he said. "Under the current circumstances, the Iraqi people will cooperate with the opposition groups to oust Saddam Husein, not to flee from him. Coming to Iran is not a solution for these people - and if they do come - it will only be temporarily. This is different from before as the action being undertaken this time around is to finish the current Iraqi regime," he explained. According to the Iranian Bureau of Aliens and Foreign Immigrants Affairs Office (BAFIA), the coordinating body for refugee affairs, Iran hosts the largest refugee population in the world today. Of the 2.5 milion registered refugees in the country, 2.3 million are Afghans, while approximately 170,000 are Iraqi, making them the second largest refugee group.