IRAQ: Fearful Palestinians in Iraq ponder ways out of the country to no avail

Many members of the Palestinian population in Iraq are feeling increasingly insescure because of kidnappings, murder and general persecution against members of their community. Most would like to flee to safety, but have nowhere else to go. Once favoured by the former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, they are now targeted due to their Sunni status. Reports of kidnappings, murder and persecution of members of the Palestinian population in Iraq have forced many to try to flee, but for most there is nowhere else to go. The Palestinian community was once a pet cause of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who granted its members special treatment. But now, its members say, they are suffering the backlash of that favouritism, and are singled out for being Sunni Arabs. The majority of them are hunkering down in Baghdad. Most live in a neighbourhood of shabby concrete buildings where they have been housed, at government expense, for decades. As sectarian killings have intensified over the past months, the Palestinians have been frequent targets of Shi'ite death squads, some in the uniforms of government security forces, several Palestinians said in interviews. On Wednesday (March 14), Iraqi troops raided the complex after receiving information that a car bomb was inside the compound, Brigadier Abdul Karim Khalaf, Interior Ministry spokesman said. Khalaf said a shoot-out broke out and that three men gunmen were killed and 25 others were arrested, including Iraqis and Palestinians. Sitting in an apartment containing a single sofa and carpets, Ilham Khudhur described the life of Palestinians in Iraq as a "prison", saying that they were afraid to walk out of their apartments to do their daily shopping. "We are living a tragedy, a real tragedy. We are living in a prison. We can not walk out. If we want to buy something or get bread from the street we do not send our sons, but rather we, the women go and do the shopping and if any one of us get sick we can not take him/her to the hospital because militiamen are there at the doors (of the hospitals) searching for the Palestinians," said 56-year-old Khudhur, who lives in the warren of Palestinian housing in Baghdad's eastern district of Baladiyat. Down on the carpet near the Sofa sat an old woman murmuring and moaning in a soft voice "They killed Khamais", in reference to her son who was taken by the militiamen, as the women said. Khudhur, a mother to three sons and a daughter said that scores of Palestinian men have been pulled from their homes in Palestinian enclaves around the capital and many have turned up dead in the morgue. Khudhur said that she usually accompanies her son when he goes out, even when he goes to fill his car with petrol. She says that she has not gone to the nearby district of New Baghdad where she used to go for shopping for the past three years for fear of being killed by Shi'ite militiamen. According to Kudhur it is very dangerous to be a Palestinian in Iraq, adding that every time they go out they are afraid that they will be stopped at a checkpoint, arrested and accused of being terrorists so they move around the city using forged Iraqi documents to conceal their true identity Although kidnappings, killings and detentions affect all segments of Iraqi society, the Palestinians say that they are especially vulnerable. "For us we do not feel comfortable here. We are not comfortable at all and our men have stopped going to work. They are no longer go to work, so we started to sell our home furniture in order to live," said 31-year-old Fatin Ahmed Mahmoud. Mahmoud said she was hit in the head by mortar shrapnel and went to hospital as an Iraqi national- using documents belonging to an Iraqi relative. She left after four days. She now needs surgery and further medical treatment but dares not return to hospital. Mahmoud has appealed to Palestinian officials to help her and her family get out of Iraq. But she other Arab countries refuse to host them. "We only want them to take us out of Iraq. None of the Arabs accept us and as for the passports, no one has any type of passport. They (Palestinian government) have granted Palestinians passports of the (Palestinian) Authority, but where are they? Ten percent (of the Palestinians) do not have the Palestinian Authority's passports and those who want to get one have to pay up to 100 U.S. dollars (USD) or 150 USD and each family has five to eight members, so who can afford such a sum!" said Mahmoud, mother of five. Iraq's Arab neighbours, Syria and Jordan, have imposed stringent restrictions on the entry of the refugees, leaving many of them stranded along the border in harsh and inhuman conditions. Shortly after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, hundreds of Palestinians and Iranian-Kurds made their way to the border to try to gain access to Jordan. But they were denied access, and remained there for more than two years. Under international pressure, Jordan eventually admitted many of the refugees before closing the border in May 2005. In January 2007 the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said that some 700 Palestinians were stranded at the Iraq-Syria border, living in harsh conditions in no-man's land after fleeing violence in Iraq. Syria already hosts 435,000 Palestinian refugees registered with the U.N. and says it is the responsibility of other countries in the region to take their share of Palestinians. Now many Palestinians living in Iraq are in a state of shock and panic. They have pulled their children out of schools and stopped going to work Kifah Fursan was forced to leave her apartment in Mashtal and went to live in a room on the roof of a rundown building of the housing complex in Baladiyat after receiving several death threats. "I was living in al-Mashtal district and they threatened us more than once and to be honest, I was concerned for my husband and my son too, he is fifteen years old. It is true that he is 15 years old, but he is big. I was worried for him, so I stopped him from going to school and and I did the same with my other children. I came here with nothing, I left Mashtal (district) after threats and came to live here. My living conditions were very good, I was comfortably living in an apartment, but here when winter comes, we are flooded with water," Fursan said. The UNHCR has often called attention to violence and threats against the more than 15,000 Palestinians living in Iraq. Seventeen Palestinian men were seized from a house rented by the UNHCR in January this year. Last October four people were killed in a mortar attack on a Palestinian neighbourhood of Baghdad. Despite their relatively comfortable situation under Saddam Hussein, Palestinians were not allowed to become Iraqi citizens under his rule and were discouraged from purchasing property. However, they were given housing and free utilities and were exempt from military service. They were also favoured for government positions and allowed to travel more freely than Iraqi citizens. When Hussein fell, nearly 1,500 Palestinians were forced from their homes as landlords suddenly found themselves free to raise rents and evict their formerly privileged tenants.

ITN Source | March 19, 2007

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