Background on Iraq Displacement Crisis
There are approximately 2 million more Iraqis displaced within Iraq. This displacement crisis is continuing to worsen as an estimated 50,000 people reportedly flee violence in Iraq each month. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 2000 people are fleeing to Syria each day. These refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are targets of persecution due to their political opinions, ethnicities, religious affiliations, and sexual orientations, to name just a few factors.
Jordan and Syria, for the most part, have refrained from sending Iraqi refugees within their borders back to Iraq. However, there are repeated threats of border closures, reports of refoulement (the act of deporting or expeling a person to a country where s/he faces persecution, or the risk of serious human rights violations), and increasingly strict rules about who may enter the two countries and for how long. Neither Jordan nor Syria is party to the Refugee Convention; thus, many Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria have overstayed their entry permission and are in genuine danger of being sent back to Iraq. The UNHCR has called for urgent support from the international community, through financial commitments and agreements to resettle Iraqi refugees in third countries, but so far the international response has been woefully inadequate.
Nonetheless, the international community widely recognizes that Jordan and Syria are taking on a significant burden in hosting Iraqi refugees. The countries' infrastructures and social systems are strained by these new populations. The timely processing of Iraqi refugees who wish to be resettled in a third country is one of a number of elements that can begin to protect those most at risk of human rights violations and ease the pressure on the region.
