Washington D.C. -- The new U.S. administration must join with other countries and urgently resettle 3,000 Palestinian refugees from the Syrian-Iraqi border, Refugees International (RI) announced today. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Sudan will soon be relocating this population to pre-fabricated housing in Khartoum. As the three parties prepare to take the refugees to Sudan, RI called for the U.S. and other resettlement countries to ensure a voluntary, dignified process that allows this vulnerable population to find a permanent, stable home.

"The Obama administration must step in and send a clear message to the world that we are interested in helping displaced people find stable homes," said Kristele Younes, Senior Advocate with Refugees International. "The plan to send Palestinians trapped at the Iraqi-Syrian border to Sudan is outrageous. The U.S. has finally started resettlement processing for vulnerable, displaced people inside Iraq who have not had the resources to flee their country. These Palestinians are among the most vulnerable, and the U.S. should prioritize their resettlement."

Approximately 34,000 stateless Palestinians have lived in Iraq since 2003. Since the beginning of U.S. military operations in Iraq, many suffered persecution at the hands of the Iraqi government and other armed groups. More than 3,000 fled to the Syrian-Iraqi border, where they live in makeshift tents in the desert with limited access to basic services. Syria refuses to allow them to enter its territory and only a few have been resettled, mostly to Sweden and Chile. Failure to act on the part of the U.S. government and other resettlement countries led UNHCR to sign a tripartite agreement with the PLO and the Government of Sudan that called for the relocation of this population to a neighborhood of Khartoum.

"The international community's failure to act and resettle this extremely vulnerable population has led the United Nations to consider Sudan as the only viable option for them," said Younes. "This is not a durable solution. Sudan will not provide them with a path to citizenship and the Palestinians will be vulnerable to civil unrest and threats of expulsion."

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has established unique, discriminatory criteria to assess the vulnerability of Palestinians from Iraq for the purpose of resettlement to the U.S. Refugees International urges President Obama to insist that the criteria be the same for Iraqis and Palestinians in Iraq, and to request that the U.S. State Department's Refugee Bureau create a special category to process the applications. Any process should be conducted without prejudice to the Palestinians' right to return to their homeland.

"While the U.S. resettled nearly 14,000 Iraqi refugees in 2008, only 3,000 refugees have been allowed in for the first few months of the 2009 fiscal year," Younes added. "Many Iraqis can never return home, but a stable Iraq will only occur when displaced Iraqis find solutions to their plight. The U.S. and its allies must continue to increase the number of Iraqis resettled, and should start with this group of Palestinians."

Refugees International is a Washington, DC-based organization that advocates to end refugee crises. In the last two years, the organization has conducted seven missions to the Middle East to identify the problems facing Iraqi refugees and internally displaced people in Iraq. In November 2008, a delegation of NGOs including Refugees International conducted a field mission to Palestinian camps at the Syria-Iraq border and released, "From Fast Death to Slow Death: Palestinian Refugees from Iraq Trapped on the Syria-Iraq Border."

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Contact: Vanessa Parra, 202-828-0110 x225