[News] Palestine refugees from Iraq resettled in Chile
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Wed Apr 9 12:30:20 EDT 2008
Palestine refugees from Iraq resettled in Chile
Report, The Electronic Intifada, 8 April 2008
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9447.shtml
DAMASCUS, 7 April (IRIN) - Thirty-nine Palestinian refugees from Iraq
-- stuck at al-Tanf refugee camp in no-man's land on the Iraq-Syria
border -- have been resettled in Chile.
"Until last year it felt like the doors were closed for moving the
Palestinian refugees. The desert conditions at al-Tanf are extremely
inappropriate for the refugees to live in. Finally a window of
opportunity opened with Chile," said Laurens Jolles, head of the UN
Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Syria.
The resettlement is the first of its kind since Palestinians fleeing
violence in Iraq were first interned in tents at al-Tanf in May 2006.
An earlier plan to resettle some of the Palestinians in Sudan was
delayed after some of the refugees rejected the idea.
Since October 2007 al-Tanf has doubled in size from 351 to 733
Palestinian refugees, following the tightening of asylum restrictions
in Syria, which already hosts an estimated 1.5 million Iraqi refugees.
Al-Walid camp on the Iraq side of the border is home to about 1,560
Palestinian refugees. So far the UNHCR has resettled one family of
eight with several sick children from the camp -- to Norway in August
last year. A third camp near the border, al-Hol in north-eastern
Syria, houses some 300.
The 39 refugees who flew to Chile from Damascus on 5 April included
23 children. They have been resettled in La Calera, 130 kilometers
north of Santiago, where local authorities are providing health care,
education and Spanish classes. Chile has agreed to host 117 refugees
in total and two more groups are expected to depart later this month
to be resettled in San Felipe, north of Santiago and other
neighborhoods in the capital.
Still stranded
Despite the resettlement in Chile, over 2,000 Palestinian refugees
continue to deal with the harsh reality of life in the desert at the
al-Tanf and al-Walid camps. Conditions in al-Hol in Syria are
significantly better as the refugees have much freer access to Syrian
goods and services.
As well as the daily threat of bites and stings from rats, scorpions
and snakes, the refugees in al-Tanf have lived for years without any
clear future ahead of them.
"One of the worst things for the refugees is that they are in a
permanent state of 'waiting.' They are between borders and have no
control over their lives. They are completely dependent on aid
organizations and this is very disheartening," said Astrid Haaland,
Iraqi Palestine refugees team leader for the UN Palestinian relief
agency, UNRWA.
Almost half the refugees in al-Tanf are under 18. Many have developed
asthma as a result of the desert conditions and are suffering from
fevers, diarrhea and vomiting.
Although there are emergency doctors from the Palestine Red Crescent
Soceity (PRCS) permanently on call at al-Tanf, treatment at a
hospital is a three-hour ride away in Damascus where only critical
cases are taken.
Despite the hardships, Jolles said the refugees at al-Tanf are well
cared for. They are not short of material, food or water supplies, he
said, and the UNHCR together with UNRWA, the UN Children's Fund
UNICEF, the PRCS and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) have set up
programs to help the refugees deal with the psychological trauma of
their experiences in Iraq.
UNRWA set up a school in February 2007, hiring some of the qualified
refugees as teachers and providing an education program which
currently teaches over 100 children.
This item comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and
information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the
United Nations or its agencies. All IRIN material may be reposted or
reprinted free-of-charge; refer to the
<http://www.irinnews.org/copyright.aspx>copyright page for conditions
of use. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs.
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20080409/5cf914a3/attachment.htm>
More information about the News
mailing list