Facing Up to the Iraqi Refugee Crisis

Facing Up to the Iraqi Refugee Crisis

by Una Hardester
Internationalist
April 2, 2007

Since the Iraq War began in 2003, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed, and more are dying, in increasingly gruesome ways, every day. The vast majority of fatalities are Iraqis killed by other Iraqis, but the United States is ultimately responsible for the humanitarian catastrophe Iraq has become. By invading, and turning Iraq’s social order on its head, the U.S. uncorked a civil war –replete with hideous acts of ethnic cleansing– that is as vicious as any that ravaged the Balkans during the nineties. All of this was predicted, in great detail, before the invasion, but the war’s architects didn’t listen. Now, the United States has a moral responsibility to offer safe haven to Iraqis fleeing the carnage. Since the beginning of the war, it is estimated that more than two million Iraqis have fled their country. There are now more than a million in Syria, 700,000 in Jordan, 20,000-80,000 in Egypt, and roughly 40,000 in Lebanon. Inside Iraq, over one and a half million people are internally displaced and living in dangerous, squalid conditions –most beyond the reach of aid agencies. The numbers, again:

Syria 1,000,000

Jordan 700,000-1,000,000

Lebanon 40,000

Egypt 20,000-80,000

Internally displaced 1,700,000

Iraq’s refugee crisis has become one of the worst on earth, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that 50,000 more Iraqis are fleeing escalating sectarian violence each month. The United States has accepted just 466 Iraqis since the beginning of the war, including 202 last year. That number will rise to 7,000 this year. This is clearly a significant increase, but let’s looks at the situation in context. The United States is a country of 300 million people. It will take in 7,000 Iraqi refugees in 2007. Sweden is a country of less than 10 million people. Last year alone, it took in 9,000 Iraqi refugees, roughly 80 percent of those who applied for refugee status there. Little Sweden is putting the superpower to shame. Years ago, I volunteered at a refugee outreach organization in the United States. The experience taught me a great deal about refugees and conflict. One lesson I learned was that in every sectarian conflict mixed families face heartbreaking decisions. Husbands and wives are torn between their mutual love and the relentless calls to arms from their respective religious or ethnic communities. Mixed couples and their children become targets for violence, as they are often seen as traitors by both sides in a conflict. This was the case in Bosnia and Rwanda, and it is now the case in Iraq. Minorities, too, suffer even when they are not directly involved in the conflict. Iraq’s ethnic and religious minorities are facing widespread persecution, and many Iraqi Christians, Yezidis, and Baha’is have already fled the country. Lesbian, gay, and transgender Iraqis, some barely out of adolescence, are also being systematically targeted for killing by Shia death squads throughout Iraq’s cities. Then, there are every war’s most tragic and blameless victims: the children on all sides. Iraq’s children are witnesses to the most horrible events fathomable: beheadings, sniper attacks, rapes, car bombings, lynchings, and torture. Children who see their parents and siblings murdered today will become tomorrow’s likely revenge killers –that is, if they aren’t removed from the conflict zone. In the past, the United States has been more open to refugee resettlement. After the Vietnam War, it accepted more than 750,000 Vietnamese refugees. The U.S. should now relieve the burden of countries like Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan by taking as many Iraqi refugees as it can –and it can take many more than 7,000 per year. Moving and resettling so many refugees would be an expensive undertaking, but the majority of Americans were willing to support an invasion, regardless of cost, and they must be equally willing to support measures to save Iraqi lives in a war gone horribly wrong. Congress should pass legislation creating a large-scale resettlement program without delay. Accepting refugees is one of a rapidly dwindling number of ways the United States can ease the suffering of Iraq’s civilians.