Syrian refugees receiving threats

Syrian refugees in Iraq are facing tough times following the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Mahmoud Abdalla has lived in Iraq since 1968 after being forced to flee Syria in fear of persecution, but now he says he feels like he is being persecuted in Iraq, due to resentment from local people. "We face a lot of threats from different political parties. I was imprisoned last month for three weeks because of false reports being made against me as a Saddam loyalist," Abdalla told IRIN in Baghdad. He explained that Iraqis viewed the Syrians as supporters of the former regime because they received support from the deposed leader as did Palestinian refugees. Under Saddam, Syrian exiles were provided with ID cards, flats and a small monthly allowance. They were able to work and earn small amounts of cash, but now many are frightened and are living in misery. He added that many of his Syrian neighbours chose to leave Iraq after the war and head to Syria. "They are now detained by the Syrian authorities," he claimed. The privileges that the refugees enjoyed created resentment among many Iraqis. The Syrians are now barricading themselves indoors by installing iron doors at the entrance of their homes and some have even been evicted. "After the war, we had armed criminals stealing our houses. My neighbour who escaped after the fall of the regime and returned had to pay US $1,000 to get his flat back," Mahmoud explained. The Syrians' plight has been recognised by some aid agencies. Abdalla Quja, a lawyer, and a representative of Syrian refugees in Iraq, said that the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had started to register Syrians by giving them ID cards and some 650 refugees had come forward to be enrolled. The registration process also allowed staff to gain more information about the exiled Syrians who are said to be older than the usual refugee, with minors accounting for less than one-third of the group. Also, they are unusually well educated, with more than half of the adults holding advanced university degrees, according to the refugee agency. But this, it seems, is not enough for the Syrians to escape bad feelings from local people. "Now we don't have protection as with the former government, so I was helping the UNHCR to get Syrians to register to have some rights, but after the attack on the UN building in Baghdad, the registration stopped and it's taking longer time to get help from the UNHCR via e-mails that I send," he explained. Quja, who is the president of the Committee for Syrian Human Rights, said he had his office broken into by US soldiers, and claimed he was receiving threats from the main opposition party during the former regime. "We used to have better salaries in the 1980s from the government here, but during the 1990s it was very little because of the sanctions. I live now on assistance from my daughter who lives in Canada, but many Syrians here don't have a source of income anymore as we haven't received our monthly allowances since last March," Quja said. In an effort to sustain humanitarian work in the country at a time when many aid agencies have downscaled due to security threats, the UK-based Islamic Relief NGO has been working with UNHCR to help Syrian refugees. Many had lost their homes when rent subsidies ended. Those who remain in their accommodation have had to cope with increased rents while the value of the Iraqi dinar has fallen. A project to help 600 Syrian refugees living in Baghdad, by subsidising rents, covering the cost of medical treatment, and paying for student's transport and equipment costs, was established by the NGO with assistance from the UN. The beneficiaries of this joint venture are refugees who registered with the refugee agency in Baghdad in mid-June 2003. Mohammed Mekkey, the Iraqi mission commissioner at the Islamic Relief Foundation, said the programme, covering 59 Syrian families, was run in November and December last year. "We've chosen some of the most vulnerable Syrian families to help, not those who live in subsidised rents. There are a lot of other Syrians who never had allowances from the government before, there are a lot of Syrians who came as refugees as they were persecuted in Syria and they were Muslim Brothers, not Baa'thists," Mekkey said. There is no accurate figure on how many Syrians are living in Iraq today Mekkey explained, adding that there were others in parts of the country, especially the north who had not been registered. "Only 650 people (from 150 families) from Baghdad and 35 persons from Anbar province were registered," he said. UNHCR is in the process of finding a long-term solution in the form of repatriation to Syria or resettlement in another country for the refugees. Mekkey said the Programme Manager of Islamic Relief was now in Amman discussing the situation with aid agencies. "From what we had discussed so far with UNHCR, resettlement sounds very difficult and it will take a long time before we could help them go back to Syria with protection because if they go there now they wont have any rights and could be summoned by the authorities," Mekkey said.