U.N. report

U.N. agency renews alarm about Palestinian refugees trapped in Iraq

3 October 2006 – The United Nations refugee agency expressed fresh concern today about the plight of an estimated 20,000 Palestinian refugees in Iraq as deteriorating security forces an increasing number to try to flee the country.
Palestinians living inside Iraq “lack protection, have serious problems obtaining identity cards, and have been the target of continuing harassment, threats, kidnapping and killings,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis told a media briefing in Geneva.
Ms. Pagonis voiced particular concern about the conditions in Baghdad, noting that late last month armed men there hand-delivered written death threats to several Palestinians – a reprise of a similar episode earlier this year that led to widespread panic among the capital’s Palestinian community.
She said UNHCR’s attempts to enlist the help of the new Iraqi Government and the multinational forces stationed inside the country “have yielded modest results” only, and now about 20,000 Palestinians remain, down from 34,000 three years ago.
Some Palestinians received preferential treatment under the regime of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and supported his 1990 invasion of Kuwait. But they have become targets since Saddam’s overthrow in 2003. The community comprises those who fled to Iraq from their homes in newly created Israel in 1948 and others born in the country.
Outside Baghdad, UNHCR has fears for the safety of some 330 Palestinians who tried to flee Iraq and have been stranded at the Al-Tanf border crossing with Syria for more than four months.

(See the rest in http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=20115&Cr=palestin&Cr1=)