More Iraqis go home

Two hundred and forty-five Iraqi refugees were repatriated from Iran on Monday, according to the Office of the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). They travelled from the Ahvaz refugee camp in the southwestern province of Khuzestan. As part of a highly sensitive repatriation operation organised by UNHCR, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq escorted the refugees 20 km from the border to the southern Iraqi city of Basra. Once in Iraq, each received US $20, heating and cooking equipment, a blanket, a mattress, and those without shelter were supplied with a tent. There have been only three convoys of Iraqis returning home since 19 November, largely due to security concerns stemming from instability in Iraq, with a total of 520 Iraqis being repatriated. Half of those returning are children, most of whom have never seen Iraq, but UNHCR sources says they are excited at the prospect of going home. Iran has the most Iraqi refugees in the world; up to 1.3 million fled to Iran more than 10 years ago after the 1991 Gulf war, when Saddam Hussein cracked down on Shi'ahs following an uprising in the south. About 200,000 Iraqi refugees were living in Iran at the beginning of this year, with about 40,000 of them in the Ahvaz camp. By now many have gone home. However, UNHCR are not encouraging Iraqis to return. "There are two main reasons why UNHCR doesn't think this is a good time for Iraqis to go back. The first is purely to do with the internal logistics. UNHCR is operating with an extremely reduced staff. There are no international representatives in Iraq, the staff is entirely local, so there is very little support for the refugees when they arrive," Marie-Helene Verney, the UNHCR public information officer, told IRIN in the Iranian capital, Tehran. "The second reason is the security situation for refugees in the country. Iraq is not stable and there is no infrastructure in place, no jobs, no electricity, no housing," she added. But unlike Afghan refugees, Iraqis are desperate to go home. Those not travelling with the UNHCR convoys are returning on their own. Too impatient to wait for a safe crossing, they risk a perilous journey, often in the hands of traffickers. This has made it difficult to estimate the numbers of Iraqis still left in Iran. UNHCR's objective is to have a proper repatriation programme in place, with daily convoys, as with the Afghan refugees. But that depends on stability and security in Iraq. And when these will materialise, nobody knows.