The Iraqi refugees in Beirut who don't officially exist
Blogged by: Toni Oyry
Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.
An employee of the U.N. refugee agency holds registration documents for an Iraqi refugee at a humanitarian centre in the Douma suburb of Damascus, July 2007.
REUTERS/Khaled al-Hariri
REUTERS/Khaled al-Hariri
The checkpoints and barricades on nearly every corner of Beirut are frustrating for Beirutis and visiting westerners, but they're particularly bad news for Iraqi refugees fleeing violence in their home country.
Any Iraqi who doesn't have a valid visa faces imprisonment or deportation back to Iraq even if they've registered with the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) and hold refugee status.
Lebanon is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, which means that the certificate issued by UNHCR isn't recognised by local security forces, judges or prosecutors.
"Currently there are hundreds of Iraqi refugees being arrested in Lebanon every month. We have witnessed Iraqis rounded up in checkpoints and homes of the refugees being raided," explains Sean Garcia from Refugees International.
The government has repeatedly stated that Lebanon is not a country of asylum for Iraqi refugees, citing the country's volatile demographic and social make-up, and the large number of Palestinian refugees already living there.
UNHCR estimates that, overall, there are 2 million Iraqi refugees in neighbouring countries, mainly in Jordan and Syria, as well as 2 million Iraqis displaced within their own country.
There are no official statistics on the number of Iraqi refugees in Lebanon, but a Beirut-based non-governmental group dealing with refugees and migrants, Frontiers (Rawad) Association, estimates that the number may be more than 40,000.
In July, 432 Iraqi refugees were in detention, and an estimated 40 to 60 are sent back to Iraq each week. The returns are coordinated and funded by the Iraqis' own embassy in Beirut.
Most Iraqis who have fled to Lebanon are Christians who believed the large Lebanese Christian community would give them shelter. Some are now hiding in the Christian area of east Beirut, Ashrafiya, being looked after by local churches. But many end up living without any protection, often in miserable and humiliating conditions.
The illegal status of many Iraqis denies them all rights. They're forced to work long hours and can be easily exploited. If their wages aren't paid, they can't do anything about it for fear of being arrested.
Their situation is similar to the 3,000 or so Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon without identity documents recognised by the authorities.
Some of these Palestinians arrived after the 1967 Six Day war and weren't allowed to register with the United Nations as only those displaced by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war have been considered refugees. Others are former Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) fighters who lost any legal status when the PLO was forced out of Lebanon.
It's difficult for them to access services offered by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which supports Palestinian refugees. They cannot work, travel, own property, register marriages, enroll in public or private higher education, and above all they cannot afford to pay for healthcare.
There are a few non-governmental groups trying to meet the basic health needs of Iraqis who don't officially exist, but their resources are extremely limited.
Inevitably, aid workers believe that many of the Christian Iraqis are moving into the only areas in Beirut where you don't find government checkpoints - those controlled by Shi'ite group Hezbollah. This could lead to further violence towards them.
"The Iraqis are hiding among the Lebanese population, but currently there is a worrying trend of them moving into Hezbollah-controlled southern Beirut, Al-Dahiya," says Refugees International's Garcia. "They believe that Lebanese security forces are less likely to come and search for them there. This is not a place we think they should be."
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2 responses to “The Iraqi refugees in Beirut who don't officially exist”
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07 Sep 2007 15:19:19 GMT
Though Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for this story, the fact that a service established for the human rights and humanitarian community has republished such a story, and that it has gone so far without rebuke, is worrying.
For one there is no evidence that Christian Iraqis are moving to the Dahiye area of Beirut. Even if they were, the author's assertion that they could face violence from Hezbollah or from the average Lebanese who live there is based on an entirely false, politically motivated premise. There are in fact no recorded attacks by Shia against Iraqis. On the contrary, it is widely understood that the majority of Iraqis seeking refuge in this predominantly Shia area are Shia themselves. As far as the Dahiye is concerned Hezbollah has been cooperative with international aid agencies working in the area, facilitating what could otherwise have been an unnecessarily drawn-out process, towards the creation of services in the area to try and accommodate the influx of Iraqis. On the other hand, Christian Iraqis in Lebanon are for the most part seeking refuge in predominantly Christian areas. There too they are seeking assistance from Christian-based charities as well as international organisations. That is not to say, of course, that the assistance Iraqis in Lebanon are receiving is sufficient - on the contrary. Charities and organisations are on the whole facing a severe shortage in funds as the number of Iraqis entering Lebanon grows. The services they are provided with today are at a bare minimum - if that. But I cannot see how such an article, which overtly seeks to foment hatred rather than a culture of resilience in difficult times, can at all qualify to be published on a respected site for humanitarians. The author - and readers alike - are advised to consider that it is the same political stream that launched an illegal invasion and ensuing occupation of Iraq that seeks today to destroy what remains of popular cohesion in Lebanon. And it is from that stream that the author all too clearly hails.10 Sep 2007 16:38:13 GMT
Dear Serene,
I am afraid that you might have misunderstood the point of this blog entry, though I understand why. I am glad that you are making the point that you are as there might be others who might have interpreted the entry in similar fashion. The point of this article is to highlight the worsening security situation of Iraqi refugees, not only in Lebanon, but in the Levant region as well as in Iraq. This article also aims to remind people of the 3,000 or so-called non-ID Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and their grim situation. Both of these are issues that in the author's view have been neglected by the international community. The fact that I've written about these topics should already give you an idea of my view of the legality of the occupation of Iraq and Palestine, not to mention Lebanon. You seem to pick up on one particular sentence: âThis could lead to further violence towards themâ and then conclude that the article is a propaganda piece against Hezbollah âthat seeks today to destroy what remains of popular cohesion in Lebanon.â As the article implies, the information about Christian Iraqi refugees moving in to Al-Dahiya comes from aid workers that work with Iraqi refugees in Lebanon. You probably know this already, but the majority of Iraqi Christians and some Muslims that left Iraq did it because they were targeted as anti Islamists and as allies of the Americans. You can easily find countless stories by Christian and Muslim Iraqi refugees on how they were attacked, tortured or their family members were killed just because they either had some relation with the Americans or as Christians they were immediately seen as the allies of the Americans. I assume that you are also familiar with Hezbollahâs policy towards America and its allies, not to mention that Al-Dahiya was largely destroyed recently by American-made missiles. You can probably understand why some aid workers would think that Al-Dahiya is not the safest place for Christian Iraqi refugees. You are right; there is no evidence that there has been violence towards Iraqi Christians in Lebanon, but I would like to remind you that the article does not say that there has. This is what some of the aid workers are worried about as there are elements that âcould lead to further violence towards the refugeesâ such as the ones mentioned above. You also have to remember that violence does not only mean physical violence. The article aims to highlight the issue that the Iraqi and Palestinian refugees need help urgently from the international community regardless of their religion. It has nothing to do with Lebanese politics or Americas "war on terrorism".