Syria says Iraqi refugees turn into ‘unbearable’ economic burden

 

By Mundher Shawi

 

Azzaman, February 25, 2009

 

Syria says the presence of more than a million Iraqi refugees is stretching its strapped economic resources to the limit and has asked other Arab countries for help.

 

It has asked a forthcoming Arab foreign ministers conference scheduled for March to place Iraqi refugees’ issue on their agenda, saying it can no longer bear paying for their stay on its territory.

 

Syria has been spending up to $2 billion a year on Iraqi refugees and that its efforts to persuade donor countries and international aid organizations for help have almost gone unheeded.

 

Syria cooperates with the U.N. refugee organization, UNHCR, and the U.N. Children’s fund, UNICEF, but both bodies’ budgets are highly limited.

 

Syria is the world’s most tolerant country vis-à-vis the plight of Iraqi refugees.

 

Unlike states with claims to democracy and human rights, such as Sweden, it has never forced refugees back home.

 

Sweden has mobilized its police force for a crackdown on nearly 5,000 Iraqi refugees it says they have failed the tests of its Migration Board to stay in the country.

 

Parents with children, some of them born in Sweden, are rounded up, handcuffed and jailed before their deportation.

 

Even the countries directly and morally responsible for Iraqis plight have done nothing to alleviate Iraqi refugee suffering. The U.S. and the U.K. whose troops invaded Iraq and devastated its towns and cities with their ongoing bombing and invasions have shamefully shrugged their responsibilities.

 

In Syria Iraqis live anywhere they want and are not obliged to stay in separate quarters or camps.

 

As a result they are entitled to social and public amenities which Syria says have cost up to $2billion every year since 2006.