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Children stopped from fleeing
25/03/2003 16:49 - (SA)
Ruweished, Jordan - Humanitarian sources in Jordan say a Lebanese woman who fled Iraq to escape the US-led strike has told them her Iraqi husband and children have been barred by President Saddam's Hussein regime from leaving. The sources said the 70-year-old woman, who arrived in Jordan on Monday after a three-day-long journey, told them her Iraqi husband and five children had not been granted the necessary permit to leave.
As is the case of almost all Arab countries, children in Iraq only get their father's citizenship.
Her testimony confirmed UN agency for refugees (UNHCR) chief in Jordan Sten Bronee's earlier belief that Iraq may have enforced a ban to prevent its national from leaving the country.
"No refugees have arrived in Jordan because of the ongoing violence and may have been prevented from coming out of Iraq," Bronee said Monday, adding that his organisation "cannot do anything about the situation."
Bronee said there was "genuine concern about Iraqis inside Iraq," but he added, "there aren't many Iraqis living between Baghdad and here." Camps
He was referring to the 600km of mostly desert which separate the Iraqi capital from the Jordanian border. Bronee said he believed "people will still be coming out, but I have no clue how many will."
A UNHCR camp was set up 65km from the Jordan-Iraqi border last week to host up to 35 000 Iraqi refugees but remains empty. By contrast, a spokesperson for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said 595 third-country nationals had transited through another camp near the Jordan-Iraqi border.
But the great majority of them left Iraq ahead of the US-led attack that began on Thursday and have since been flown back to their respective countries.
Rana Sidani said 199 people, among them 86 Somalis, 70 Sudanese and 17 Palestinians were still at the Red Crescent camp on Tuesday.
The 17 Palestinians, among them four women and seven children, arrived at the camp on Monday evening after five days spent in no man's land between the Iraqi and Jordanian border.
They are in possession of Iraqi travel documents but have no official citizenship as their families left Palestine during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
A spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNWRA) in Amman told AFP a team had been dispatched to Ruweished to "determine whether they fulfill the refugee status," in which case they will receive assistance.
'Christian' refugee wants to stay in camp
Meanwhile, a Sudanese refugee who gave his name as Malwal told AFP he and his family did not want to leave the Red Crescent camp and go back to their country.
Humanitarian sources said he was among approximately 100 Sudanese and Somalis that have objected to being repatriated owing to the unstable political situation in their home countries.
"I am a Christian from southern Sudan, there is war there and I don't want to go back," said Malwal, who lived 19 years in Iraq and escaped the country on Wednesday night, a few hours ahead of the US-led strike that began on Thursday at dawn.
"I'll go anywhere as long as it is a peaceful country," said the father of five whose youngest child is 18 months.
Bronee said the status of those third-country nationals that refuse to go home was being looked into to see whether they "meet refugees' criteria."
The UN children's agency UNICEF said it would provide educational and recreational activities for the 20 children registered at the camp by Wednesday.
Education officer Maha Homsi said UNICEF had also originally prepared for an inflow of Iraqi refugees and mobilized teachers to allow children to continue their education in exile.
- AFX
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