Surge Seen in Iraqi Returnees

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

BAGHDAD — The number of Iraqis returning to their country after fleeing abroad is growing, with more than 46,000 people coming home last month, an Iraqi government spokesman said today.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi Army said 17 bodies were discovered in a mass grave northeast of Baghdad in an area troops have only recently been able to enter because of a downturn in violence.

An Iraqi spokesman for a American-Iraqi military push to pacify Baghdad, Brigadier General Qassim al-Moussawi, said border crossings recorded 46,030 people returning to Iraq in October alone. He attributed the large number to the “improving security situation.”

“The level of terrorist operations has dropped in most of the capital’s neighborhoods, due to the good performance of the armed forces,” General al-Moussawi told reporters in the heavily-guarded Green Zone. General Al-Moussawi did not give numbers of Iraqis returning home before October.

The latest figure comes as Iraq’s neighbors, particularly Syria and Jordan, have tightened their borders to Iraqis fleeing the turmoil in their own country. Syria is home to at least 1.2 million Iraqi refugees, and Jordan has about 750,000.

Many of those Iraqis are living in limbo, unable to work and running out of whatever money they were able to bring out of Iraq.

Both countries are struggling to provide services to incoming Iraqis and began requiring visas for them starting this past summer. Most applications are denied.

Those who fled to Syria or Jordan before the new rules took effect must leave when their three-month permits expire unless they have been officially recognized by the United Nations as refugees — a process that can take months.

That leaves many people with the choice of returning to Iraq or risking deportation anyway. And with the improving security situation, it appears many Iraqis are opting to return home.

General Al-Moussawi did not explain whether the 46,030 included people who arrived by air, rather than by crossing borders from neighboring countries.

According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, some 2 million Iraqis have fled their country. Besides Syria and Jordan, Egypt has absorbed 100,000. Some 54,000 Iraqis are in Iran, 40,000 in Lebanon, 10,000 in Turkey and 200,000 in various Persian Gulf countries.


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