(This is part of a special report on the exodus from Iraq)

Jan 31 (Reuters) - Up to 2 million Iraqis have fled abroad and 1.7 million have moved elsewhere in Iraq to escape a deluge of violence and sectarian bloodshed that has washed over their country since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

Here are some quotes from those trying to deal with the problem and from refugees themselves.

* "I can't live in Baghdad any more. It's turned into a city for dead people and I'm not ready to have my children grow up as orphans" - Asam Rifaat, a criminal lawyer who has decided to take his family out of Iraq.

* "This is the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world" - Refugees International President Kenneth Bacon to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Jan. 16.

* "It is difficult for some Iraqis to meet the definition of refugees at risk of persecution" - Stephane Jaquemet, regional representative of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

* "The West also has an interest to support the first countries of asylum because otherwise you will have huge migration movements, uncontrolled, with boat people, with all the risks associated with that kind of migration" - Jaquemet.

* "It generally is easier to say no than to say yes" - Bill Frelick, refugee policy director for Human Rights Watch, on U.S. reluctance to take in Iraqis.

* "The situation is very dangerous and any person who speaks out against occupation or tries to write about the militias and government corruption is liable to be assassinated" - Iraqi writer Haifa Zangana, who has lived in London since 1976.

* "I can breathe in Amman. In Baghdad I would go to sleep worrying that they will come after me" - Iraqi refugee Abdul-Razzak al-Zobai, talking of Shi'ite death squads.

* "I never felt I was working for the occupation. I was proud that I was helping Iraqis of all sects" - Ahlam al-Jibouri, who fled after she was briefly kidnapped for working for a U.S.-backed support group for former political prisoners.

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