Iraqis abandon their homes in Middle East's new refugee exodus

Iraq is experiencing the largest human exodus in the Middle East since the Nakba in which Palestinians were forced to flee their homes and country before the formation of Israel.

This human catastrophe is one of the least discussed aspects of Bush and Blair's misguided war in Iraq. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees said 50,000 Iraqis a month are abandoning their homes. That is an astonishing figure that it is only possible to overlook because the appalling violence on the Iraqi streets commands more of the media's attention.

They flee because they are in fear for their lives, with many leaving after receiving death threats.

Some 3,000 Iraqis are being killed every month according to the UN. Most come from Baghdad and the centre of the country, but all of Iraq outside the three Kurdish provinces in the north is extremely violent. A detailed survey by the International Organisation for Migration on displacement within Iraq said that most people move after direct threats to their lives: "These threats take the form of abductions; assassinations of individuals or their families."

And, of course, the irony is that the more of them flee the more that sectarian violence can begin to take the form of mortar attacks as rivals can attack each others community's safe in the knowledge that they are unlikely to kill members of their own community.

It is all part of the bigger picture which is the complete disintegration of Iraq.

The most common destinations are Jordan and Syria which have taken 1.6 million people. At first it was the better-off who fled, including half of Iraq's 34,000 doctors. Now it is the poor who are arriving in Amman and Damascus with little means of surviving.

Only Syria has formally recognised a need for temporary protection for Iraqis. Others, including the US and UK, are loath to admit that one of the world's great man-made disasters is taking place. The UNHCR thinks every Iraqi should qualify as a refugee because of the extraordinary level of violence in the country. "This is the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world," Kenneth Bacon, president of Refugees International told the US Senate Judiciary Committee.

The fastest growing refugee crisis in the world is taking place and both the US and UK refuse to accept it is happening as it is counter to their propagandist version of events.

Remember when both the US and UK used to claim that we were going into Iraq to help the Iraqi people?

Now, as their country and their cities become too dangerous for them to live in, we refuse to accept that this humanitarian crisis is upon us.

Some do not run fast enough. Ali, a Shia businessman who also had a job with the government, was slow to abandon his fine house in a Sunni part of west Baghdad. One day he was picked up by a gang, whipped and only released when he had handed over all his money. "The kidnappers told me to leave the country," he said."

But not all succeed in getting out of the country. The land routes to Jordan and Syria run through Sunni territory. Shia trying to reach safety have been taken from their vehicles to be shot by the side of the road. But Shia can move to safety in south Iraq and therefore make up the bulk of the internally displaced.

For Sunni there is no real place of safety in Iraq. In Baghdad they are being squeezed into smaller and smaller areas. Cities like Ramadi and Fallujah are partly ruined and very dangerous. Mohammed Sahib Ali, 48, a government employee, was forced out of the al-Hurriyah area by Shia militiamen. A Sunni, he took refuge in a school in Salah ad-Din province. "We are dying here," said Ali. "Not enough food, not enough medicines. I can't go to work and my three sons can't attend their classes. We don't know what to do."

I remember, shortly after Paul Wolfowitz was made President of the World Bank, thinking that an historic opportunity had been lost. The people who championed this illegal war have been allowed to waltz away from it's consequences almost guilt free. As Iraq collapses into ruin I think those who supported the invasion should be made to put right the wrong that they supported.

I'd start by making Paul Wolfowitz Mayor of Baghdad. Perle can have Tikrit.

Real people are suffering real consequences as a result of the fantasies of these neo-con lunatics. And not one of them, to my knowledge, has paid any price for the fantastically bad advice they have given. Nor has any one of them ever expressed any real contrition for what they have done. Oh, they have sought to distance themselves by claiming that the war has been badly managed, but not one of them has ever admitted that they were wrong to support the war in the first place.

I'd ship the lot of them to Iraq and not allow them to come home until they had sorted the mess they helped to create.

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tag: Iraq, Iraq war, refugee crisis, exodus, Nakba, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, snark