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UN refugee agency says thousands of Palestinians evicted from their Baghdad homes
Jordan Times, 6/25/03
GENEVA (AP) — Thousands of Palestinian have been evicted from their homes in Baghdad since the fall of Saddam Hussein, who gave them asylum and cheap rents, the United Nations refugee agency said Tuesday. Kris Janowski, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said around 800 families — or about 4,000 people — have been ordered out of their homes by landlords in Baghdad since May. Two hundred more families have been given notice to quit their apartments when their children finish their high school exams later this month.
Janowski told reporters the Palestinians are camping in tents provided by the UN agency. “However, this is only a provisional solution, with temperatures soaring well above 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit),” he said.
UNHCR has asked the US-British coalition running Iraq to let the refugees move into empty government buildings.
Saddam's government championed the cause of the Palestinians and rented apartments for around 90,000 refugees, paying as little as $1 a month to landlords who did not dare object. Now, most of the landlords want the Palestinian refugees out or have sharply raised rents.
Other assistance given to the Palestinians may have led to resentment from Iraqi citizens who felt that the refugees were getting more help than they were, UNHCR said. The agency said it fears the evictions are part of a backlash against the refugees.
Many of the refugees have lived in Iraq since 1948 when Israel was established on their lands. Others were displaced during the 1991 Gulf War.
Janowski said UNHCR also is helping around 600 Syrian refugees in Baghdad who fled their homeland for political reasons in the 1960s and 1970s. “They have been left to their own resources” and some have been evicted, he said.
Many told UNHCR they now want to go home, but some fear a return to Syria, he said.
UNHCR staff also have visited Al Tash camp west of Baghdad for the first time since the US-led war on Iraq in March, Janowski said.
Around 12,000 people live in the camp, most of them Kurds from Iran who fled their homeland fearing oppression following the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
“The refugees complained to UNHCR that over the past few weeks the camp has seen a string of violent incidents, including shooting, looting and attacks by the local population,” said Janowski. UNHCR has urged the coalition to protect the camp, he added.
Meanwhile, UNHCR is distributing aid to hundreds of Iraqi Kurds who have gone back to their homes in near Erbil in the north.
Many of the Kurds — who were forced out during Saddam's “Arabisation” campaign in the region in the 1990s — have found their villages destroyed or littered with landmines.
Others face conflict with Arab settlers who moved into their homes on Saddam's orders.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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