Today is World Refugee Day: US Criticized For Failing to Help Iraqi Refugees...

[babylonsister]

World Refugee Day: U.S. Criticized For Failing to Help Iraqi Refugees and Iraqis Who Aided U.S. Occupation


Over the past five years the U.S. has resettled just 5,000 Iraqis. Compare that to Sweden–a country of only nine million people–which resettled 18,000 Iraqis last year alone. And among the most desperate seeking asylum are those Iraqis who have been forced from their homes because they helped the US government in Iraq, serving as interpreters and civil society experts for the military, State Department and federal agencies such as USAID.

Events are being held across the country and the globe today to mark World Refugee Day. According to the United Nations, by the end of 2007, there were more than 11 million refugees worldwide and 26 million internally displaced people. It was the second year in a row the number had gone up after five years of falling. And, as the UN refugee agency reports, the situation in Iraq is behind much of the rise.

Since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, an estimated 4.7 million Iraqis have been displaced both within and outside Iraq. And for many, the situation is desperate.

Jordan and Syria alone have taken in some two million Iraqi refugees but are not equipped to meet the needs of all those arriving. In a new report, Amnesty International accuses the international community of failing to respond to the crisis in a meaningful way. As of 2007, only 1 percent of the total displaced Iraqi population was estimated to be in the industrialized world.

To mark World Refugee Day, Amnesty International is calling on the international community, in particular those countries who participated in the US-led invasion of Iraq, to take real steps to alleviate the suffering of those displaced.

Nowhere is this more relevant than in the United States. Over the past five years the U.S. has resettled just 5,000 Iraqis. Compare that to Sweden–a country of only nine million people–which resettled 18,000 Iraqis last year alone. And smong the most desperate seeking asylum are those Iraqis who have been forced from their homes because they helped the US government in Iraq, serving as interpreters and civil society experts for the military, State Department and federal agencies such as USAID.

On Democracy Now! today:

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/20/world_refugee_day_us_criticized_for