Palestinians in Iraq with nowhere to find shelter. For them, everywhere it is «denied entry»
Waiting to be killed
And the exclusions and discrimination brought into force by the Iraqi government Target of the army, the police, and fundamentalist militias, they have suffered 186 victims and 662 armed attacks
By
Luisa Morgantini
Vice President of the European Parliament
Published in Il Manifesto 6 April 2007
«You Palestinians, traitors, Saddam's people, terrorists, infidels. You must leave the country. You have ten days to get out otherwise we will come and kill you. Day of Justice Brigade.». It's a text, written on a piece of paper, found pinned to the door of their home in a district of Baghdad by a Palestinian family one morning last September.
The Palestinians in Iraq, apart from families who have lived there since times long gone by, are refugees from 1948 and 1967, who, in contrast to the Palestinians in other Arab countries who live mainly in refugee camps under the protection of the UN agency for the protection of refugees, UNRWA, live, or rather lived, in city districts in houses assigned to them by the government and who had travel documents and passports.
From day one of the military occupation and the end of Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003, Palestinians have been subjected to every type of discrimination. They have been sacked from their jobs, and suffered harassment and cruelty. Several humanitarian organisations have charged that «a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing » is being carried out in Baghdad against Palestinian refugees. Only in 2006, more than 600 have been killed by Shiite militias. Tawfiq Abdul-Khalil Abu Abed, an old man of 70, was found dead with evident signs of torture, killed by a criminal group who had kidnapped him. Abu Abed is only one of the many victims of the death squads in Iraq.
Shiites on the rampage
In the days immediately following the military occupation, during the greatest period of vandalism, Iraqi citizens, mainly Shiites forced many Palestinians to leave there homes to avoid being killed. They accused them of being collaborators with the regime, to have been treated in a privileged manner by Saddam, and of being Sunnites. In Kuwait too, after the war, Palestinians were persecuted, imprisoned, and more than 300,000 were forced to flee, losing all their possessions and paying the price of Saddam Hussein's war.
In Iraq, their houses have been broken into, looted, and then taken over by other Iraqis. Even the Palestinian embassy has been attacked three times and the ambassador has been in prison for more than a year. The security forces of the Iraqi Interior Ministry are accused of being involved in the arbitrary arrests, torture, killings and "disappearances" of many Palestinians. The armed militias linked to the Badr and Mahdi brigades have released proclamations against them and have attacked isolated Palestinians.
The process of continuing deterioration in the living conditions of Palestinians in Iraq is unstoppable and it is not possible to think of turning back the tide. The current state of Iraqi society, drowning in clashes, bombing raids, and terrorist attacks, does not allow it. Seen as the old privileged class from the times of Saddam Hussein's regime, the Palestinians have become a scapegoat. They are the target of all armed forces in Iraq, from the army to the police and the fundamentalist militias: 186 victims in 662 armed attacks, according to the Palestinian human rights organisation «Rased». And matching the violence is the process of exclusion and discrimination brought into being by the Iraqi authorities: all residence permits, whether temporary or permanent, obtained under Saddam Hussein's regime, have been annulled. It is almost impossible to obtain a travel permit, emission of documents for new born children have been suspended since 2003, every kind of assistance and humanitarian aid is denied. A law has been passed that obliges every single Palestinian to present himself or herself before the competent authorities every three months - the whole family, including newborn babies and old people without consideration for illness or disabilities. Any delay means a fine of 10 thousand dinars.
Ethnic Cleansing in Baghdad
The Palestinians who had a passport have managed to cross the border and are once more refugees in Jordan and Syria. The others are without identity, without passport. In 2003, the High Commission of the United Nations for Refugees (UNHCR), registered 23 thousand Palestinians in Iraq while the total was estimated at 34 thousand. The agency has made known several attacks by armed militias. In particular, a few weeks ago in the Palestinian suburb of Baghdad, Al Baladya , following several threats aimed at forcing the Palestinians to abandon the zone, four were killed and a dozen were seriously injured, and many families were forced to leave their homes. The ambulances that tried to reach the area immediately after the attack were forced back by the armed militias. The suburb of Al Baladiya was normally home to around 8 thousand Palestinians, but according to Palestinian sources, there are currently only 4 thousand in the area. The agency expressed serious worries about the conditions of Palestinian refugees and about the difficulty of providing adequate protection for them. Though it is the responsibility of the Iraqi government and of the Coalition forces to guarantee protection, not only have the Iraqi government done nothing to protect the Palestinian population, the minister responsible for displaced and migrant people has called for the expulsion from Iraq of all Palestinians. The promise of the Kurdish president Jalal Talabani to guarantee the safety of Palestinians was worth nothing, and though in Iraq no one is safe, the Palestinians are less safe than others.
Most of those who fled from the cities to avoid being killed have reached refugee camps situated on the borders with Syria and Jordan. There are around 1300 stopped at the border, and according to UNHCR, around 20,000 are still trapped in Baghdad.
For the Palestinians in Iraq, escape is the only way, but it is also a forbidden way. The documents issued by the regime are now worthless and their legal status is not recognised (many are stateless), making them the minority that has most difficulty in leaving Iraq. Syria and Jordan, who have accepted thousands of Iraqis have closed their borders against the Palestinians. In 2004, Jordan granted entry to 386, who were married to Jordanians, while Syria accepted 256 in May 2006. This has led to the creation of 4 refugee camps, one in the Jordanian desert, one in Syria, one in Iraq, and one in the so-called «no-man's land » between Iraq and Syria. The camp at Ruwayshid, is one of the first camps. It is three hours by bus from Amman inside Iraq in the desert. It is a camp set up by the Jordanians who would not allow the first group of Palestinians who fled Baghdad in the first days of the bombardment of Iraq, to find refuge in Jordan. The Palestinians have now been living in tents for four years. They cannot leave the camp except to go to hospital in Amman. There are children who have never seen life outside the camp, they live surrounded by barbed wire and watched by armed guards. The request of UNHCR to the neighbouring states and to other Arab countries to keep their borders open to the Palestinian refugees coming from Iraq, since Syria and Jordan cannot be expected to confront the situation alone, remains unheeded.
Since May 2006 more than 400 Palestinians have been living in tents in the Al Tanf camp, in the desert in no-man's land between Syria and Iraq. When they arrived they found the border closed. Muhammod is 26 and arrived at the camp this year, after a tragic journey in which his companion was brutally killed. He relates how they were already outside the city when the Iraqi police stopped them. When they realised that they were Palestinians, they took everything of value and started to beat them. The friend who accompanied Muhammod was killed by a blow to the head, while he himself was grazed on the neck by a bullet. He survived because they believed he was dead. His nose was broken by the blows and the police thought that the bullet had hit him in the face.
«What do they want of us?»
Sahar Ahmed, is 41 and was born in Iraq. Her family fled from one of the 362 Palestinian villages evacuated in 48 by Israel and then completed destroyed to cancel the memory and the possibility of return for the inhabitants. She has four children. One has been tortured, the daughter has been raped and her husband has been killed. Armed men wearing ski masks entered their home and destroyed everything. Sahar managed to find the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and giving testimony, said «I ask the world, what do you want from us? What are you waiting for before helping us? With a daughter raped, a son killed, a husband killed. Without a home, what do you need now before you help us get out of this country. How much suffering must we still endure? Must we wait here until they kill us all, expecting every day to be taken and tortured?». Nadia Othman, who fled from Baghdad to Jordan, tells of the death of her brother: «The Shiite militias stopped him while he was on his way to school where he taught Arabic. After they saw his documents, they shot him in the back of the neck in cold blood ». «The same day – continues the woman – they abducted and killed the president of the Palestinian Haifa Sports Club of Iraq». Another Palestinian, who managed to get to the northern West Bank, says that now no one goes out with their documents, in an attempt to cancel their identities. These seem almost like stories from Lebanon during the civil war – they used to ask those suspected of being Palestinians to say tomato. The Palestinians replied «bandura», and the Lebanese «banadura» . It's said that many Palestinians in Lebanon were recognised and killed because of this.
Enough, we won't allow more crimes
Two human rights activists have collected the testimonies of the tragic conditions of Palestinians in Iraq in a documentary. They are dedicated helping Palestinians to leave Iraq. We invited one of them to the European Parliament to participate in a meeting with the delegation relations wit the Palestinian Legislative Council and to sensibilise Europe and the parliament to the condition of Palestinian refugees and to ask the Union and the European governments to intervene. «The documentary and our commitment have a specific function: to persuade the leaders of national governments to grant political asylum to the Palestinian refugees coming from Iraq » said the activist. «We go round the world, from one national institution to another, to talk directly with governments, to sound out possible political amenability and to try to find ways to safety for the refugees».
«The situation is very delicate - he explained – we must find the right balance in the mediatic presentation. Raising the question too much could worsen the situation of Palestinians who are still in Iraq. It's right that the problem should enter the public domain but we believe that it is only possible to resolve it at the political-institutional level. We are asking all governments to accept the Iraqi Palestinians. In this sense, our recent visit to Chile was very fruitful. Chile, though not a country that is traditionally open to refugees, has accepted two hundred Palestinian refugees. The result is that probably, the Ruwayshid camp can be closed. We are in contact with other Latin American and European countries and our next mission is to Yemen, where the UNHCR is trying to set up a temporary evacuation centre».
The European Union has a duty to support this project, but its principal responsibility must be to put pressure on the single national governments, to take in groups of Palestinian refugees. The entire international community must consider the case and recognise the tragedy, first of all calling on Jordan and Syria to open their borders and on Israel, responsible for the '48 e '67 refugees, to open the West Bank and Gaza to the Iraqi Palestinian victims. Italy as well, among the European countries that are most sensitive to the problem, must do everything to make a concrete contribution.
Up to now, the UNHCR has only found a solution for 62 refugees (54 accepted by Canada and 8 by New Zealand), while the two activists acting independently and going to speak directly with governements, have managed to find a solution for another two hundred and to open negotiations with Brazil and South Africa. But a juster solution would be that of preventing the persecution of the Palestinians, calling on the Iraqi government and the occupying forces to defend and protect them. Even more just would be to allow the return of the refugees to their own land: the occupied Palestinian territories. Israel opposes this with the usual security issues – the Iraqi Palestinians could be dangerous extremists and the Palestinian government lacks the sovereignty to be able to decide whether to accept them. Action must be taken soon. Their lives are in danger and the Iraqi Palestinian community is suffering a new Nakba, after that of 1948. Our responsibilities and those of the International Community are immense. Let's not permit more crimes. Let's save them!
