Al-Ahram 28 July- 3 August 2005

Roughly one million Iraqis have fled the fighting in their country to stay indefinitely in neighbouring Syria, Paul Wulfsberg reports from Damascus

With the onset of the US-led invasion in March 2003, there were widespread fears that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would flee to Syria and Jordan, but the quick capture of Baghdad without prolonged fighting limited the flow of refugees to a trickle. It was not until late 2003, as the security situation in Iraq began to fall apart, that large numbers of civilians started crossing the Syrian border.

"There has been a tendency for Syria to suffer consequences each time something serious happens in Iraq, as with the church bombings in August 2004," observed Ann Maymann, a protection officer with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

While the Iraqis that crossed into Syria during and immediately after the invasion may have included leading Baath Party officials and disproportionate numbers of Sunni Arabs, those seeking refuge in late 2003 and early 2004 were broadly representative of Iraq's diverse population. The bombing of five churches in Baghdad and Mosul on 1 August 2004 prompted roughly 40,000 Christians to leave the country, mostly for Syria, while another series of church bombings two months later accelerated the trend, so that Christians now represent around a third of the Iraqis staying in Syria, though they are only four to five per cent of the population in Iraq.

Tit-for-tat violence between Sunnis and Shia has had similar effects on those communities, as neighbourhoods in Baghdad and elsewhere become increasingly divided by sectarian affiliation. The number of Iraqi Kurdish refugees is modest, with dozens or hundreds of Syrian Kurds even leaving Syria in the wake of tensions between Kurds and the central government in the past year, choosing the fairly prosperous and virtually autonomous northern Iraq over Syria.

While estimates vary significantly, most place the number of Iraqis in Syria around one million, with only 18,000 registered as refugees with the UNHCR. Maymann attributed this to the limited resources available to the UNHCR, meaning that Iraqis have to stand in queues for half a day in exchange for a letter of temporary protection formalising their refugee status, but not helping them relocate to other host countries or offering much in the way of concrete aid.

Though the West was willing to open its doors to Iraqi refugees during the last decade of Saddam Hussein's rule, coalition members in particular would be embarrassed by an admission that the situation in Iraq is spawning refugees. "The traditional resettlement countries need to acknowledge that there are Iraqi refugees here in need of a durable solution," said Maymann.

The Syrian government has been very helpful in heading off a potential humanitarian crisis, according to Maymann. "Syria has been the only neighbouring country to keep its borders open, which the US is not pleased with, but is very positive from a human rights point of view."

Syria does not require entry visas for citizens of Arab countries, who are allowed to stay for six months before travelling out of the country and returning to renew their residency. Unlike the case in Jordan, Iraqi children are allowed into Syrian schools -- though the flood of Iraqis across the border has made this in practice more difficult as Syrian resources are stretched thin. Iraqis in Syria were at first allowed free, universal healthcare, but this privilege was later modified, with Iraqis currently still entitled to subsidised healthcare.

With the unemployment rate in Syria estimated at 20 to 25 per cent and a rapid population growth rate of 2.34 per cent, the Iraqis "represent an extremely tough burden for Syria, which is not a rich country," said Maymann. The last UNHCR refugee camp in Syria closed in 2004, since Iraqis have been settling in Syria's cities, in neighbourhoods loosely segregated according to religious and ethnic affiliation. This demand-side shock on the housing market has sent rents and home prices soaring in Damascus, Aleppo and elsewhere.

While Syria does offer much- welcome stability for Iraqis, few are interested in staying permanently, especially among the Shia, Kurdish and Christian communities here. Selim, an eloquent university graduate wounded in the Iran-Iraq war, was working as a carpenter in Najaf until August 2004, leaving for Syria after a band of militia fighters loyal to Moqtada Al-Sadr took over his workshop near the Imam Ali Mosque during fierce fighting with US forces. He went to Damascus looking for work, and set up business outside of the Al-Sayida Zeinab Mosque on the southern outskirts of Damascus after sympathetic Syrian shopkeepers lent him a stock of religious souvenirs to sell to Shia pilgrims.

Though southern Iraq has enjoyed a shaky peace for much of the past year, Selim and other Shia peddlers complained that the US has been slow to make basic utilities needed for economic reconstruction available and provide jobs. "If you need to have electricity for a special occasion such as a wedding, you have to pay a large bribe, maybe 20 or 25 thousand dinars (about $15) to have electricity for just one full day."

Many of the Shia working in Syria travel to Iraq frequently, and those from the South describe their reasons for emigrating as primarily economic. Selim is planning to return to Iraq in November, and then to decide with his wife whether they and their three children will stay in Najaf or all move to Syria to wait for the situation to improve in Iraq. Like the vast majority of the other Iraqi Shia in Syria, he is determined to eventually return to Iraq for good.

The Iraqi Christian refugee population is less optimistic about their prospects in Iraq, with many uneasy about their status in a potentially Shia- dominated democracy. While there were some 1.4 million Christians in Iraq according to the 1987 census, this population declined throughout the 1990s as hundreds of thousands sought asylum in Europe, Australia and North America. In addition to the devastating effects of the 1990-91 Gulf War and UN economic sanctions, the Baathist regime began drawing on Islam as a new source of legitimacy, instituting measures such as banning traditional Christian names and cracking down on proselytising. Now, they are estimated to be fewer than one million Christians in Iraq, of whom over two-thirds are Assyrian Catholics (also called Chaldeans) and Assyrian Orthodox, with smaller populations of Syrian Christians and Armenians.

Many younger Christians are ready to leave Iraq behind for the West, and frequent the Western embassies in Damascus trying to join relatives abroad, with mixed success. Ninos is a 23-year- old Assyrian Christian who fled with his wife and infant son after being lightly wounded in a drive-by shooting that left a fellow Iraqi informant for the US army dead. "We have no future in Iraq," he said, while explaining why he and his Christian friends did not vote in the January elections. He applied for a visa at the Australian Embassy, but was rejected, and is now saving up to apply for a Canadian visa -- despite his service for the US government, he believes he has almost no chance of being granted an American visa.

Among another generation of Iraqi Christians, the attitude is distinctly different. Most of the older men seated around a table playing cards at a coffeehouse in the majority Christian neighbourhood of Jermana in Damascus had voted in the elections, all choosing exclusively Christian candidates, and yearn for a chance to return to Iraq in peace. "Our history in Iraq goes back 4,000 years, this is our homeland," said Abu Toma, who has a younger brother living in Australia, but is uninterested in joining him. Even though the men more or less agree with Abu Toma's assertion that the American presence "is not an occupation, but rather a liberation", they all say that Christians were better off under Saddam than they are now.

Abu Toma blamed the US for fanning sectarian strife and spoiling previously quiet relations between Christians and Muslims. Abu Aram, who left Mosul last August after the church bombings, chimed in.