Sudanese nationals flee Iraq

More than 140 Sudanese nationals have crossed into Iran fleeing hostilities in Iraq, the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) chief of mission in Tehran, Enrico Ponziani, told IRIN on Monday. More than 100 Sudanese people also crossed into neighbouring Syria from Iraq on Monday. He said that 144 Sudanese Third Country Nationals (TCNs) had finally made it from the Iraqi border to Kermanshah airport, about 150 km inside Iran in the western province of Bakhtaran late on Monday morning and had left on a Mahan Air flight to Sudan, chartered by IOM. There were 27 children and seven infants in the group. Ponziani said the IOM team in Kermanshah was at the border at 0500 local time and after the usual customs procedures, the Sudanese were bussed to the airport. “The charter left at 16:15 and should be arriving in Khartoum in the next four and a half hours escorted by an IOM medical doctor,” he said. The Sudanese had arrived at Hasrevi - the official border crossing with Iran and had been waiting at the border for eight days before being given permission to enter Iran. The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Bureau of Aliens and Foreign Immigrants’ Affairs (BAFIA) in Tehran had been responsible for facilitating the return of the Sudanese nationals to their homeland. IOM and the office for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as well as the Sudanese Embassy in Iran, were also closely involved with gaining permission for the migrant workers to enter Iran. IOM had assured the Iranian Government that all the Sudanese leaving Iraq would be immediately returned to Sudan as soon as they were allowed to cross the border. Although thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) have reportedly moved towards the Iranian border, to date no TCNs or Iraqi refugees from the present crisis have arrived in Iran. This may be due to severe restriction of movement by Iraqi authorities, fear of travel through combat zones or access to adequate food and water where those considering fleeing currently live. Iran hosts about 202,000 refugees from Iraq, by far the largest group of Iraqi refugees in the world. Meanwhile Sudanese TCNs have also entered Syria in numbers. “Today we saw the first major flow of third-country nationals into Syria,” International Organization for Migration (IOM) spokesman Chris Lom told a news conference on Monday in the Jordanian capital, Amman. Lom reported that a group of 119 mostly Sudanese migrant workers fleeing Iraq arrived at the Abu Kamal border crossing on Monday morning, while an additional 60 Sudanese without travel documents remained on the Iraqi side of the border. He noted that the Sudanese ambassador to Baghdad, who left Iraq by the same route, met IOM officials in Deir el Zor on Sunday and informed them of the imminent arrivals. Sudanese embassy officials are scheduled to travel from Damascus on Tuesday to facilitate the entry of the remaining 60 Sudanese nationals into Syria. The Sudanese will stay in the El Heri camp set up by the Syrian Red Crescent at Abu Kamal, until IOM can fly them to Khartoum from Damascus later this week. Lom said that in the last week, IOM had helped 50 Moroccans, Sudanese and Egyptians fleeing Iraq to return home from Syria.