Returnees to north settling slowly

After a pilot convoy to repatriate Iraqi Kurdish refugees from Iran through a new border crossing reached its destination in northern Iraq without a hitch in late June, the organisers, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Iran and the International Rescue Commission (IRC) in Iraq, plan to repeat the procedure at the end of this month. The new border crossing at Haj Omran is primarily used by Kurdish refugees, who fled northern Iraq during eviction campaigns in 1975, 1988 and 1991. Previously, those wanting to return to the north would have had to have used the other crossing in southern Iran at Shalamcheh in Khuzestan province. The first 15 Kurdish families (80 people in all) arrived at the Iran-Iraq border post of Haj Omran on 23 June. All had been living in the Ziveh refugee camp in the western Azerbayjan province, some for nearly 30 years. Trucks had been provided to carry their belongings, with two families sharing each truck. Met at the border by representatives from IRC and the Refugee Registration Committee, a local government body set up in the nearby town of Diyana in 1998, returnees were given US $20 in cash, and approximately $120 in non-food items. After registration at Haj Omran, they were assisted in returning to the places they mentioned on the Voluntary Repatriation Form the UNHCR had required them to fill in. "The basic idea of the scheme was that the UNHCR would only work with refugees able to give a specific location to come back to," the IRC country director, Denis Dragovic, told IRIN in Arbil. For political reasons, returnees were only given transport assistance to areas north of the so-called Green Line which before last year's war separated the Kurdish-controlled zone from areas attached to Baghdad. Judging by the results of a follow-up carried out 10 days after the refugees returned, as many as four families may have continued south under their own steam. "We found one family living in rented accommodation, and 10 families living with relatives," said Dragovic. "Four were no longer at the addresses they had given." Due to the security situation inside Iraq, UNHCR is not promoting refugee returns. However, a demand from refugees led to convoys being arranged under difficult circumstances and refugees are briefed before they leave. As well as receiving new arrivals and keeping an eye on their reintegration into Iraqi society, the IRC also has the job of giving legal aid and information to returnees. "These people are by no means coming back blindly - they have usually kept up very close relations with their families in Iraq," said Dragovic. "But that doesn't necessarily mean they know where to go to get ration and identification cards, or who to speak to if they have a land claim." The IRC has given help to 600 refugees returning to Iraq since the war. In the same period, UNHCR has facilitated the return of over 11,500, in convoys from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. But the 23 June convoy was the first time UN-assisted returnees had used the Haj Omran border crossing. As the director of Diyana's Refugee Registration Committee pointed out though, that doesn't mean Haj Omran was previously closed to returnees. "Since 1998, our office has registered 79,400 returnees, almost all of whom crossed into Iraq via Haj Omran," Sarkir Yassin told IRIN in Diyana. "This year alone, we have registered 240 families, including the 15 facilitated by UNHCR," he said, pointing out that refugees had used the crossing which was not officially open then. The help offered to returnees by Yassin's office has varied wildly according to the capacities of the Kurdistan Regional Government. Between 1998 and 2000, for instance, many returning families were given large sums of money. Now, families not registered in the UN scheme receive little more than the sort of legal advice offered by the IRC. This explains Yassin's fear that the UNHCR repatriation project risks creating two tiers of returnees. "What I would like to see is the same limited aid being given to all returnees," he said, "regardless of which border post they cross and whether or not they have filled in the correct UN documentation in advance." Denis Dragovic agreed that, with an estimated 25,000 Kurdish refugees still in Iran, the 80 people who returned in June were only a drop in the ocean. "It appears that information about this scheme has not been spread as well as possible on the Iranian side," he said. "But numbers are increasing - there are expected to be 240 people in this month's convoy. With luck, the process will accelerate." Those least likely to hear of the convoys are probably Kurds like Falah Gharib, for 30 years a resident not of a refugee camp, but of the Iranian city of Shiraz. He crossed via Haj Omran with his Iranian wife and two children. "I hadn't heard of the convoy plan," he told IRIN in Diyana, "and even if I had, it probably wouldn't have made much difference. My children are supposed to start school this autumn, but the Iranian authorities were refusing to extend my Green Card. My only choice was to come back to Iraq." Kicked out of Kirkuk during the Baath regime's Arabisation campaigns in 1975, Gharib said he preferred to stay in Diyana. "There are a lot of Persian speakers here, so my wife will feel much more at home," he said. But at two in the afternoon, having crossed the border that morning, they still had no idea where they would be spending the night.