Iraqi refugees are getting the cold shoulder, reports Nermeen Al-Mufti from Geneva As security continues to decline in Iraq, millions have abandoned their homes and left the country. According to UN figures, no other country has seen an exodus on such a scale since World War II. A total of five million people have emigrated or been displaced. An estimated 1.5 million more are contemplating emigration. Speaking at a conference held in Geneva last week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said that the Iraqi government intends to provide $25 million in assistance to over two million refugees living abroad. "We will never abandon our citizens," Minister Hoshyar Zebari said at the same conference. Nearly two million Iraqis now live in Jordan or Syria, the two countries that have been most welcoming to Iraq's refugees. The rich have no financial problems, but others live in hardship and under the threat of deportation. The influx of Iraqi refugees has boosted property prices in Syria and Jordan, causing economic problems, and both countries are contemplating restrictions on refugees fearing that Iraq's sectarian violence may spread across their borders. Iraqi girls are forced to work as prostitutes due to economic hardship, according to a recent US television report. Saad, a former university professor in Baghdad, left his country last June for Amman. The only job he found there was construction work. Now he is trying to support his family of five on 100 Jordanian dinars ($145) a month. His family rents a room in a flat with three other families. Because of the family's financial difficulties, Saad's children dropped out of school. Rasha, a university student, was in tears as she described her situation. She lives in Jordan with her mother. As a student, Rasha has residency status, but her mother doesn't. They stand in long lines with other refugees at the gates of the UN High Commission for Refugees waiting to be processed while the UNHCR is busy retraining its employees. "I cry for myself and for Iraq. The humiliation of it all! Iraq used to help all Arab countries, and look what happened." Like many other Iraqi families, Rasha's family has been dispersed. She and her mother live in Jordan. Her father and elder brother are in Libya. Her aunt and other brother live in Qatar. And she has an uncle in America. Rasha hasn't seen her father since 2003. When the US administration said it was going to offer asylum to 7,000 Iraqi refugees, Hassan, a former professor of medicine in Iraq, and his wife, a pharmacist, were optimistic: both left Iraq after receiving death threats. Hassan took his papers, the death notes he received, and photos of his colleagues who were killed in Iraq, and went to stand in line in front of the US Embassy in Amman. He was given a quick interview during which an embassy staffer told him that asylum would be granted solely to people who had worked for the occupation forces as translators, contractors, or in some other capacity. "The $25 million that the Iraqi government is earmarking for refugees in neighbouring countries could have been better spent on small projects for Iraq's young people, or even to reintegrate those who were tempted to work for the militia and the death squads," he said. Hassan was sceptical of how it could help and was horrified to learn that Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki sent a letter to the Geneva conference, asking other countries to refrain from granting asylum to Iraqis. The Iraqi foreign minister justified the request by saying that Iraq didn't want its best minds to emigrate. "Hundreds of academics have been abducted and killed in Iraq. Over 100 employees of the Fellowships Department of the Higher Education Ministry were abducted, and the government couldn't do anything." For Hassan and many in his place, the brain-drain is the least of the country's worries.
