The Unwanted Refugees Of The Iraq War

Palestinian-Born Iraqis Lived Well Under Saddam, Now Many Are Homeless, And Politically Untouchable

(CBS)  This story was written for CBSNews.com by Amman, Jordan-based reporter Kristen Gillespie.

---

In the middle of the empty, rocky desert on Jordan's easternmost flank, a group of fabric tents flap loudly in the winter wind. It's a small camp set up by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) before the war with Iraq began in the spring of 2003.

The mass exodus of Iraqis anticipated in the weeks after Saddam Hussein's regime fell didn't materialize, but about 1,300 people did come. When they arrived, they were placed in provisional camps like this one until a more permanent solution could be found.

One of the dozen tents is home to Miriam, her husband and two small children. They're Sunni Muslims of Palestinian origin, and like the nearly 100 others left in this camp, they say they were threatened by Iraqi Shiite militias beginning just days after the regime fell on April 9, 2003.

Thinking they would spend a few weeks in Jordan at the most, they left with the clothes on their backs and ended up in this tent 50 miles from the border with Iraq, surrounded craggy desert as far as the eye can see. They've been here ever since.

The tents are of a thick canvas held together by steel poles and reinforced on the inside with plastic sheets and military-style blankets. Most don't have electricity. Residents bring buckets of water stored in raised communal tanks. Inside Miriam's tent, the smell of a small gas heater fills a room that's dark and stuffy, even in the middle of the day. Since the camp is in the middle of the desert, there's very little to do.

"Just sitting here, we've become bored and mentally tired," Miriam says. People in the camp have stopped leaving their tents, she says, and the makeshift school and handicraft activities that kept people occupied have stopped due to a lack of will and lack of funding.

"Even a prisoner knows how long his sentence will be," says Miriam. She says she fights depression, and her children frequently face infections and skin disorders from the harsh living conditions. Her three-year-old son, Maan, who was born in the camp, has lesions on his legs and his head was shaved due to a skin disorder.

As Miriam speaks, the wind shakes her tent's soft walls. The floor is covered with heavy blankets, to soften the uneven terrain. The tent is not solid enough to keep out mice and scorpions, and the wind whips at the bottom edges of the tent. Still, the inside is spotless, with simple wood furniture neatly arranged. A crumpled page from a 2005 calendar is pinned to the blanketed wall. It shows a photograph of a Mediterranean-style villa surrounded by palm trees overlooking a lake, and serves as an unwitting reminder that time has stood still in this camp.

In another part of the tent sits a small, single gas-fueled burner. A banged-up teapot rests on top of it. Miriam says she's afraid to cook during the winter. Two years ago, a six-year-old girl was killed in her tent when the wind blew the flames out from under the gas heater. Within minutes, several tents had burned to the ground. "I'm afraid a strong wind will come through and set the whole tent ablaze," she says.

[hsinco-2009]

How many refugees has the Bush regime created?

Yet another example of Compassionate Conservatism. Create a need and turn their back. Much like the coming VA crisis.

[kba78]

Ahh Boo HOO on ur Tent, Things dont happen over night!go outside and build a sand castle.

[grumpas]

kba78: That is a rather calloused attitude to take to other people's suffering! Why don't you go outside and build a sandcastle for George? Put the jerk in it and let the tide wash him out to sea! We have enough crimes to answer for as a nation without adding a lot of hapless refugee's to the long list!

[anneselden]

I am grateful that you brought up the subject of the Palestinian refugees, so long denied full and equal rights and respect in the land of their birth.

I think this is a difficult situation for everyone. 60 years of being pawns pushed around by any one with an agenda has helped make life hell for many vulnerable Palestinian families and children... our highest priority should be to make sure the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is fully respected by every nation on earth- with the highest priority being to making sure the Palestinian refugees who want to return can return to their original homes and lands all through out historic Palestine.

Israel started this problem and Israel needs to take full responsibility for its sovereign actions. Instead Israel, has been rewarded for pushing millions of Palestinians into abject poverty and despair. Adding insult to original injury, Apartheid Israel has blithely continued to create Palestinian refugees, with many Palestinians forced into 'voluntary' exile.

Palestinians, like all people on earth, should be free to leave- and free to return... free to live with full and equal rights no matter where they might be. I applaud Jordan for being " the only country to ever offer them citizenship" - and I can certainly understand why after 60 years Jordan has been forced to now say no more : This mess of massive homelessness started with political Zionism and the country called Israel- that is where it needs to stop.

[jenniferfry]

Thanks Grumpas. I couldn not have said it better.

[pwrslm]

This mess of massive homelessness started with political Zionism and the country called Israel- that is where it needs to stop.
Posted by anneselden at 10:10 AM : Feb 18, 2007

Strange how one sided the pleas for mercy are. About 1500 years ago, when the ancestors to these Arabs invaded the palestine territory, nobody cried then. They scattered the remaining Jews across the region, without any regards for right.

Now, when the decendents of those very same Jews want to come home, and do come home, how blatantly we ignore thier rights to uphold some imagined right of Arabs who would be called "palestinians".

There never was a people or a nation called palestine for a palestinian people to exist. Its propoganda, duely noted by Arab leaders, and spread worldwide for nothing more than to garner the popular sympathies of the nations of the world. Before they became "palestinians", these same people slurred this name as an insult, to indicate the degrading culture of the Jews.

What is the use of it all? To deny a Jewish home for a peoples whom the Arab Muslim culture could not totally consume, as they have so many others? To deny the truth, that so many people in so many nations would be foolish enough to take the words of the Arab Muslims, unquestioned, after 1400 years of thier blood lust?

[anneselden]

pwrslm you are way off base- there is nothing one-sided about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights- it applies to all equally, as should all law- and all mercy.

The Nazi Holocaust was an evil ugly bigoted crime against all of humanity... we know better now and it is crucial for everyone's sake that when any one says NEVER AGAIN it applies to ALL!

Jews have been legally free to make their homes in many places, and they do. The fact that many Israeli Jews have freedoms and rights and opportunities in both America and in Israel while millions of impoverished Palestinians are stuck in statelessness in concentration camps is abhorrent.

[formrusmcsgt]

pwrslm-

Why am I not surprised that you would argue against a Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

Only xenophobes could take such a position.

[jabberwock11]

"Strange how one sided the pleas for mercy are. About 1500 years ago, when the ancestors to these Arabs invaded the palestine territory, nobody cried then. They scattered the remaining Jews across the region, without any regards for right."

We can always keep going back in history to look ant who owned what when. What about the Canaanites? In any case it doesn't matter. We have to look at the situation as it stands now. That not only means the current Jewish state but several million Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank. As far as I%u2019m concerned both sides are guilty of propagating this conflict. IMO we should just cut off all money to everyone concerned and let them settle it one way or the other.

[lars008-2009]

anneselden

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights- it applies to all equally, as should all law- and all mercy.

name one islamic country that grants that to non muslims??? let alone muslim women???

END PISSLAM APARTHIED NOW!!!
"Entrance into Muslim territory by infidels of foreign lands under the pact guaranteeing protection to the tolerated peoples is permitted only for the time necessary to settle their business affairs.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/jewish/1772-jewsinislam.html
Afghanistan | Albania | Algeria | Azerbaijan | Bahrain | Bangladesh | Benin | Brunei | Burkina Faso | Cameroon | Chad | Comoros | Ctte d'Ivoire | Djibouti | Dubai | Egypt | Gabon | Gambia | Guinea | Guinea-Bissau | Guyana | Indonesia | Iran | Iraq | Jordan | Kazakhstan | Kuwait | Kyrgyz Republic | Libya | Malaysia | Maldives | Mali | Mauritania | Morocco | Mozambique | Niger | Nigeria | Oman | Pakistan | Qatar | Saudi Arabia | Senegal | Sierra Leone | Somalia | Sudan | Suriname | Syria | Tajikistan | Togo | Tunisia | Turkey | Turkmenistan | Uganda | United Arab Emirates | Uzbekistan | Yemen |