In Beirut, Serene Assir examines the plight of Iraqi refugees, defenceless and destitute in countries that do not want them In 2003, Moufiq's family began to suffer. Wide-eyed, broad-shouldered, his face marked by lines that speak of both pain and experience, he asks a question while waiting in a queue to seek assistance from the Middle East Council of Churches, Beirut: "Can you do anything to help me get my nieces out of prison? They're young, and ever since my brother was shot, they became mine to take care of. Coming in to Lebanon from Syria, they were caught and detained by police. They've been in prison for 23 days," he said. Officials in the Lebanese Ministry of Internal Affairs' General Security branch dealing with non-Palestinian migrants say that although technically they can hold illegal migrants for up to three years, they are more lenient with Iraqis. "Once their period of detention hits a month, we give them the option to be voluntarily repatriated. Otherwise they remain in detention," said Pierre Ephrem, an official at the Beirut General Security headquarters. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), one million Iraqis are believed to have sought refuge in Syria, 750,000 in Jordan and an estimated 40,000 in Lebanon. General Security and NGOs working to assist Iraqis in Lebanon, however, believe the number is in fact closer to 100,000. Like Syria and Jordan, Lebanon is not party to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. All three countries have strained relations with their Iraqi migrant communities because of this. "We cannot sustain the influx of Iraqis. We have to work within the margins of our laws, and we have enough problems as it is," said Ephrem. "In any case, the occupation of Iraq was not of our making, but of America's," he added. "The West is not only better equipped to deal with the refugees; it is their responsibility." On the eve of a conference called by UNHCR for 17-18 April in Geneva to try to address the issue of Iraqi refugees, Iraqis are estimated to be leaving their country at a staggering rate of 50,000 a month. UNHCR Chief Antonio Guterres has described the plight of Iraqis as constituting the greatest refugee crisis since 1948. In fact, in some aspects it is worse. While Palestinians fleeing their villages and towns in and around the time of the Nakba for the most part felt they would one day return, many Iraqis have already lost hope. More problematic is the fact that Palestinians fleeing during the Nakba were estimated at 700,000, while the number of Iraqis who have already fled beyond their country's borders tops two million. In addition, a further two million are estimated displaced within Iraq. "We will never return," Maryam, mother of four, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "And even if the occupation were to end, there will be more disasters for Iraq. American policy for the region may be failing, but alongside its failure we are the ones bearing the brunt for the mass destruction the US's war is reaping. We have nothing to go back to." Maryam, who worked as a teacher in Baghdad, must withhold her full name because of her family's sensitive security situation. Her husband was an engineer in Iraq, her sister-in- law a dentist and her brother-in-law a doctor. Her mother-in- law and father-in-law were academics. Her father-in-law was shot dead. Today the two parts of the family live in a single room in east Beirut, sleep on beds covered in moss, and eat un-refrigerated food. Two of the children are ill, and the families are fast running out of the meagre resources left over from their collective savings. Worse still, regulations of the US-backed Iraqi regime stipulate that Iraqis whose passports have expired can only have them renewed in Baghdad. "But return any time soon is a physical impossibility," said Jawad, Maryam's husband. "When the regime under Saddam Hussein fell, I fled to seek refuge first. My intention was to have my family join me later. But the rest of my family received threats too; they would have died had they not left Iraq. The death of my father proves that." This story is typical of many Iraqi families. The overall result, should conditions continue as they are in Iraq, is that gradually an undeterminable number of Iraqis would lose their citizenship and ability to return. No doubt the fact that the three countries that are hosting the vast majority of Iraqis fleeing unrelenting violence in their home country are not party to the Refugee Convention is a major problem facing families such as Maryam's. By not being signatories to this convention, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon are technically not obliged to provide refugees with any protection; rather, they are liable for arrest and deportation should they not have a visa or residence permit. However, according to both Lebanese authorities and Iraqis themselves, the crisis is more profound than any of the main host states can bear. "We want to move to Europe, where we can find stability," said Maryam. "Here we are nobody. There is enough poverty and unemployment in Lebanon as it is. Public sector services cannot deal with the Lebanese. Our brothers here have been good to us, and we thank them, but we cannot settle here forever." The crisis shows no sign of abating. With every day that passes, more Iraqi men, women and children are targeted in an all-out state of violence that supersedes any other war in living memory in the levels of carnage it is reaping. "We don't need assistance," said Maryam, "Of course, we are in trouble. But we need a solution. No amount of material assistance will restore the dignity we have lost. We need a solution that will give us back that dignity." The solution that Maryam and other Iraqis need goes far beyond the usual remit of UNHCR as a body dealing with ideally temporary refugee crises. The fact of the matter is that a literate nation of professionals is being consciously dismantled creating a human disaster of immense political and human proportions. Either the international aid community, already under intense pressure from activists, join forces with efforts to end the carnage and the occupation, or real pressure should be exerted on industrialised nations to host the majority of fleeing Iraqis. The third possibility, which is unacceptable, involves continuing to treat fleeing Iraqis like criminals, detaining or ignoring them, leaving them defenceless and without protection when already they feel they have lost their homeland and history.
