IRC Team Examines Plight of Iraqi Refugees

An International Rescue Committee assessment team traveled to Amman, Jordan, last week and will visit Syria this week to assess the situation of almost 2 million refugees who have fled the war in Iraq. The team will consider how the IRC might provide services to the refugees and will explore the possibility of resettlement for some of them in the United States. “It has been assumed that since most of the refugees are middle class, they are able to take care of themselves,” said Gillian Dunn, a member of the mission and director of the IRC’s Emergency Response Team. “However, even middle-class Iraqis are being denied health care, education and jobs. They are slipping into poverty and they face a perilous human rights situation.”

In addition to the refugees in Jordan and Syria, some 1.7 million people are displaced within Iraq. Last month, the IRC urged the U.S., the European Union and other leading nations to respond quickly to the plight of the Iraqi refugees and to support U.N. efforts to assist them. “The flight of almost two million Iraqi citizens to other countries makes this a refugee crisis of historic proportions,” said IRC president George Rupp. “It is urgent that the international community meet the U.N. refugee agency’s appeal for $60 million as a first step in addressing the needs of these people.”

During the past year, only 202 Iraqi refugees were resettled in the United States.