First returnees arrive from Iran

The first group of assisted Iraqi refugees arrived home from Iran late on Wednesday. They were driven into southern Iraq with the help of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and NGOs. "We had planned to send 100 people - a limited number for the first time, but we only had 76, of whom around 16 are men, and the rest are women and children. They came in two buses and two trucks carrying their luggage," an aid worker for the Italian NGO InterSos told IRIN in Basra. The NGO is working closely with UNHCR in Basra on the logistics and organisation of the voluntary repatriation of the refugees. The refugees were from the Ashrafi camp in southwestern Iran, which is home to the largest community of Iraqi refugees, who arrived there over the last three decades. There are about 202,000 in all in the country, mainly in the west, with 48,000 sheltered in 22 camps overseen by the Iranian government Iraqis returning to their homeland on Wednesday said it was good to be back on familiar ground. "I wanted to come earlier to Iraq after the toppling of Saddam Hussein, but I needed to come officially. I knew of many others who managed to leave Iran earlier, but they could afford transportation and I couldn't," Hani Kazim, aged 29, who left Iraq in 1991 after his brother was executed, told IRIN in Basra. Once back in their country, the Iraqis each receive cash assistance of US $20 and other basic items such as blankets, a mattress and cooking utensils, as well as transportation. Zahrah, an Iraqi woman who arrived with her husband and three children, told IRIN that although her husband had been allowed to work in Iran outside the refugee camp they lived in, he had been unable to earn enough for them to survive on. "My children didn’t go to school, because everything was in Farsi [Persian]; Arabic was not allowed to be taught at the camp," she said. According to officials at the border, it took some time before the refugees could cross into Iraq due to bureaucratic procedures. Moreover, the vehicles carrying them had experienced difficulties crossing the main bridges on the common border. The refugees were taken to a registration point established by UNHCR, where they were able to collect food rations before the buses drove them to their home town of Al-Tannumah, close to the border with Iran. Meanwhile, in addition to those from Iran, the 10th group of Iraqi refugees from the Rafah camp in Saudi Arabia have crossed into their homeland through the border area of Safwan, 35 km southwest of Basra. These numbered 362, all whom had left Iraq since 1991. Most were former residents of the southern cities of Al-Samawah and Al-Amarah, according to UNHCR staff. The returnees were taken by bus to a central registration point to be registered with UNHCR and receive food rations. According to the refugee agency, all groups of refugees who came from Rafah had left Iraq in 1991, except for the sixth group, which comprised 42 former soldiers who escaped in April this year. Once again many were relieved to be back home. "I feel like I'm born again. I want to have a new beginning. The camp was like a prison for me, I couldn’t go on with my studies, work, and I haven't seen my family for 13 years except in photos that was sent to me through letters," Nizar Ali, aged 33, told IRIN. Ali had left Iraq with a group of relatives from his home town, Al-Samawah, and walked to the border with Saudi Arabia. "In Al-Samawah, we had help from the French troops, part of the allied forces at that time, to flee. If we hadn't left Iraq at that time, we may have ended up in one of Saddam’s mass graves," he said. In 1991, the failure of the Shi'ah uprising in the south against Saddam prompted him to kill without trial thousands of suspected opponents. Ali said some of the lucky residents managed to escape to Al-Hillah and other cities in central Iraq.