Iraqi Refugees

Transcription

Iraqi Refugees

Pontifical Mission Society
Human Rights Office
Dr. Otmar Oehring (Editor)
Postfach 10 12 48
D-52012 Aachen
Tel.: 0049-241-7507-00
Fax: 0049-241-7507-61-253
E-Mail: [email protected]
© missio 2009
31
Menschenrechte
Droits de l’Homme
ISSN 1618-6222
missio-Bestell-Nr. 600 295
Human Rights
Klaus Barwig/
Otmar Oehring (eds.)
Asylum for
Iraqi Refugees –
Background
Information
The situation of
non-Muslim refugees
in countries bordering
on Iraq
The Human Rights Office aims to promote awareness of the human rights situation in Africa, Asia
and Oceania. In pursuit of this objective we are actively involved in human rights networking and
foster exchanges between missio’s church partners in Africa, Asia and Oceania and church and
political decision-makers in the Federal Republic of Germany. This Human Rights series comprises
country-by-country studies, thematic studies and the proceedings of specialist conferences.
24 Interfaith Endeavours for Peace in West Papua (Indonesia)
in German (2006) – Order No. 600 277
in English (2006) – Order No. 600 278
in French (2006) – Order No. 600 279
in Indonesian (2006) – Order No. 600 280
25 East Timor Faces up to its Past – The Work of the
Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation
in Indonesian (2005) – Order No. 600 284
26 Asylum for Converts? On the problems arising from the
credibility test conducted by the executive and the
judiciary following a change of faith
in German/in English/in French (2007) –
Order No. 600 285
27 Human Rights in the People’s Republic of China –
Changes in Religious Policy?
in German (2008) – Order No.600 286
28 The human rights situation in Myanmar/Burma.
First political steps of a minority church
29 Zimbabwe: Facing the truth– Accepting responsibility
Order No. 600 292
30 Defamation of Religions and Human Rights
Order No. 600 293
31 Asylum for Iraqi Refugees – Background Information
The situation of non-Muslim refugees in countries
bordering on Iraq
The Human Rights Office of the Pontifical Mission Society missio in Aachen and the Migration Affairs
Department of the Academy of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart extended an invitation to
specialists in the fields of legal, ecclesiastical, political and migration affairs and to journalists to
travel to Syria, Jordan and Turkey from 30 September to 8 October 2007 to investigate the
situation of the refugees from Iraq at first hand. This brochure comprises a collection of the
reports subsequently published.
No changes have been made to the names of people and places spelt differently in the individual
articles.
This brochure is also available as a PDF file.
All publications are also available as PDF files.
http://www.missio.de/humanrights
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Content
3 Klaus Barwig/Otmar Oehring: Asylum for Iraqi refugees
5 Edgar Auth: A tragedy unheeded.
The West must not shirk its responsibility
7 Edgar Auth: Fleeing the nightmare. Hundreds of thousands have received
asylum in Jordan and Syria – but not everyone feels safe there
9 Klaus Barwig: Dead end for refugees
The situation of Christians, Yazidis and Mandeans from Iraq
18 Jan Bittner: Iraqi Refugees: Open Western Doors to the Most Vulnerable
20 Jan Bittner: The West Has Overlooked A Major Crisis In The Middle East
22 Harald Dörig: The flight of religious minorities from Iraq – Impressions from
a journey with a delegation of experts to countries of asylum in the Middle East
29 Iris Escherle: Report on an official trip to the Middle East / Situation of the
non-Muslim, primarily Christian, refugees from Iraq in the neighbouring
countries
42 Ferdinand Georgen: Future prospects for members of non-Muslim minorities
living as refugees in countries bordering on Iraq
49 Stefan von Kempis: “Only the Pope can help us.”
Iraqi refugees caught between all stools
54 Otmar Oehring: Like after the Vietnam War
Today’s boat people: Why 30,000 non-Muslim refugees from Iraq need a
home in Germany
57 Paul Tiedemann: Non-Muslim minorities in Iraq. Account of a journey
65 Authors
66 Source references
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3
Klaus Barwig/Otmar Oehring
Asylum for refugees from Iraq
Negotiations on asylum for refugees from Iraq have been under way for some
time now at both the national and international level. Individual EU Member
States, such as France, have already taken in Iraqi refugees in line with national
regulations, while others, including Denmark, Great Britain, the Netherlands and
Sweden, have accepted refugees as part of existing resettlement quotas. Germany,
by contrast, has yet to take in any refugees on a quota basis despite repeated
announcements that it would act unilaterally, should the EU fail to introduce
any regulations in the short term. As early as April 2007 Germany characterised
non-Muslim minorities who had fled from Iraq as subject to group persecution,
subsequently according refugee status on a case-by-case basis to those who
succeeded in setting foot on German soil.
In April 2008, at a conference in Bad Saarow bringing together the German
Minister of the Interior with his colleagues from the 16 federal states, discussions
were held for the first time on the issue of the refugees from Iraq. Since that time
it has become glaringly obvious to anyone concerned with the issue that among
the Iraqis who have fled to the neighbouring states there is a sizeable group of
refugees in need of special protection, among them a disproportionately large
share of members of non-Muslim minorities – Christians, Mandeans and Yazidis.
These refugees have no realistic prospect of returning to Iraq in the foreseeable
future. Having fled from the traumatising situation in Iraq, they now find themselves in apparent safety, but in no less traumatising circumstances. In Syria and
Jordan they are regarded as wafidin, guests who have already overstayed their
welcome in the country and should be moving on. In Lebanon they are treated
as illegals, while in Turkey their presence is tolerated, but that is all. In any event
they have no permanent right of abode, no material security, no prospects of
returning and no future. In many cases, particularly in the cities, they are seen
as the cause of the drastic increase in rents and the cost of living and, since they
work illegally, they are also accused of bringing down wage levels.
At this moment it can no longer be a question of whether or not Iraqi refugees
from non-Muslim minorities should be given asylum in Member States of the
European Union, including Germany. On the contrary, the more pressing issue
is the granting of asylum to an appropriate number of Iraqi refugees in need of
special protection as part of an agreement on quotas.
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On 7 January 2008, the President of the Commission of the Bishops
Conferences of the European Community (COMECE), Bishop Adrianus Van Luyn,
sent a letter to the then President of the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council, the
Slovenian Minister of the Interior Dragutin Mate, urging the EU Member States
to take in 60,000 non-Muslim refugees from Iraq. In late October 2008 missio
called on Germany to admit at least 20,000, better still 30,000, Iraqi refugees in
need of special protection. In doing so, missio recalled the asylum Germany had
given to the Vietnamese boat people 30 years previously.
This appeal rested largely on the outcome of a fact-finding mission undertaken by experts in legal, ecclesiastical, political and refugee affairs to Syria,
Jordan and Turkey (30 September to 8 October 2007), to which they had been
invited by the Human Rights Office of the Pontifical Mission Society missio in Aachen
and the Migration Affairs Department of the Academy of the Diocese of RottenburgStuttgart. This brochure consists of a number of reports compiled by these
experts.
5
Edgar Auth
A tragedy unheeded.
The West must not shirk its responsibility
One of the biggest human tragedies of recent times – the flight of millions of
Iraqis from their native country – is currently being played out almost unnoticed
by the general public worldwide. Nobody in Iraq knows whether the car they
are standing next to will explode within a few seconds, whether their child will
be kidnapped in the next few hours or whether radicals and criminals will
terrorise their neighbours because of differences in their religious and ethnic
backgrounds. The U.S. Army raids also frighten many people.
This explains why some two million Iraqis have moved from the south to
the north of their country and why a further two million people have fled to
the neighbouring countries of Syria and Jordan, to Egypt and Turkey. Since there
are no camps and very few visible refugee treks, there are no pictures. And
without pictures it is almost impossible to attract international attention.
As a matter of course Syria and Jordan, in particular, have welcomed those
in need as their guests. Their actions are primarily attributable to a common
history, culture and religion. People and politicians in these countries have not
forgotten that the Iraqis were not ungenerous themselves when they were in a
better situation. But now Syria and Jordan, fearing ever greater burdens, are
closing their borders.
The refugee disaster is the result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the subsequent errors made by the troops of the U.S.-led coalition – and there is no remedy
in sight. On the contrary, George W. Bush still favours a military solution,
although everyone can see that it will not resolve a single problem. It is now up
to the Western perpetrators of the war to assume liability for the consequences
of their deeds.
The best thing for the refugees would be if security and stability were restored
in Iraq. However, there is no discernible strategy to that end. So the refugees must
be helped. Germany has given money, which has been gratefully accepted in the
recipient countries. But more could be done, in particular, for the religious
minorities among the refugees. They are the victims of religiously motivated
persecution; many now find themselves traumatised and penniless in neighbouring countries. They do not want to return to a nightmare situation, but very
few have any real hope of asylum in a Western country.
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It would clearly be good for the centuries-old culture of coexistence in the
Middle East if as many as possible of these refugees were to remain in the region
and return to their native country. After all, peaceful coexistence, daily intercourse,
the realisation that people with different beliefs are neither devils nor child-eaters
constitute the best antidote to religious fanaticism. But if there is no other way
out, account must be taken of these people’s wishes.
In the financial year 2005/06 the U.S.A. took in 8,000 Iraqi refugees, but that
is not enough given the country’s responsibility and potential. European countries such as Germany, France, Italy and others should also resolve to accept a
sizeable number of refugees. The Christians, in particular, are for the most part
well educated and their culture is most readily reconcilable with that in Europe.
It ought to prove possible to find somewhere to live for the 40,000 Mandeans,
too, where they can survive as a cultural community.
This does not represent any unfair treatment of the Muslims, the majority
of whom have the prospect of being able to return to their country. They have
relatives in the region and their plight can be eased by tribal and religious
affiliations. However, the religious minorities doubt whether they themselves
have a future in the country they come from. That is something the countries
willing to take in refugees should consider and provide generous assistance accordingly. After all, if legal channels are not opened, some of the refugees, desperate
as they are, will turn up on the borders of these countries as boat people or the
victims of international gangs of people smugglers.
7
Edgar Auth
Fleeing the nightmare.
Hundreds of thousands have received
asylum in Jordan and Syria – but not
everyone feels safe there
Amman. A year ago Emad Y. was satisfied with life. He was employed as a
technician in the Iraqi oil ministry. His son had a good job as an engineer in the
industry ministry. In July 2006, though, everything changed abruptly. His son,
an active member of the Christian community in Baghdad, was murdered
because he was a Christian.
Emad Y.’s family was gripped by fear following the brutal attacks by the
Shiite Mahdi militia and Sunni terrorist groups. Within an hour they had fled
across the border into Jordan, taking virtually nothing with them. In the
Chaldean Catholic Vicariate in Amman he gave a tearful report of what had
happened to him, which boiled down to just two words: ”Help me.”
His other son is afraid to leave the home. Like most of the other Christians
who have fled from Iraq to Jordan or Syria, Emad Y. wants to move on to Australia, Canada, Sweden or the U.S.A. He goes out, briefly strokes the hands and
feet of the Virgin Mary on a wall painting and kisses his hands that have just
touched the painting.
Carolyn Ennis of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) in Ankara sees in the exodus of the Iraqis ”the biggest refugee
disaster since the expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948”. Jordan’s Deputy
Minister of the Interior, Moukaimer Abou Gamous, estimates that over 750,000
Iraqis have fled to his country alone. Jordan, which has a population of 5.3
million, has just emerged from a period of severe drought. The infrastructure can
no longer cope with such an influx of people, the minister says. Nevertheless
Jordan has opened its schools and clinics for its guests from neighbouring Iraq
– an expensive gesture for the kingdom.
The limits have now apparently been reached. Amman has introduced
compulsory visas for Iraqis. ”This is not a harsh system”, the minister explains
with an apologetic gesture. Visas can be obtained within a week via the Internet,
he says. These are valid for three months. Those who remain in the country without extending their visa will have to pay 1.5 dinars (about two euros) per head
and day when they leave.
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This is probably one reason why many refugees prefer not to register with
UNHCR and to live a twilight life instead. Lacking a job permit, many refugees
work illegally and, according to those affected and their helpers, they are often
cheated of their earnings as a result. An estimated ten per cent of the refugees
are Christians, Mandeans or Yazidis. These non-Muslim minorities find themselves in a particularly precarious situation. Muslims, on the other hand, find
support in their cultural community.
Syria, which also borders on Iraq, faces a similar situation. Some 1.5 million
refugees have fled to the country, among them around 100,000 Christians.
Their reports are much the same. One day there was a threatening letter pinned
to the door which said: ”You are sullying our soil. Our swords are thirsting for
your blood”. The Sisters of the Good Shepherd in Damascus showed us copies.
Most such letters give the recipients an ultimatum: convert to Islam or get out.
To prove that a conversion is genuine the family must provide a daughter as a
wife for a Mujahideen. Christian women have to wear a veil. Kidnappings are
an everyday occurrence. Many Christians, once members of a well trained and
educated middle class, leave in a great hurry taking nothing with them.
Three times a day the songs and prayers of the refugees from Iraq can be heard
from the Chaldean Catholic Church of St. Teresa in Damascus. The piety that
even young men demonstrate strikes Europeans as unusual. The desperate situation of the refugees may well enhance their fervour. ”It’s a disaster”, says a man
outside the church in the old town quarter of Bab Thouma. ”We’ve lost everything.” A woman says that she has kept her job with the government in Baghdad. She commutes between Iraq and Syria so that she can feed her family. Food
is distributed in a room filled with packages next door to the church. Those who
register receive a bottle of oil, a bag of bulgur, a glass of preserved tomatoes, flour,
tea and rice – their ration for three months. School exercise books and pencils
for children are also available. 3,000 families are looked after in this way. The
donations come from charitable Syrians and the Protestant Middle Eastern
Council of Churches.
Like Jordan, Syria (pop. 18.4 million) has opened its schools and hospitals
for its needy guests. In many classes there are now up to 60 pupils. Buildings are
going up all over Damascus and those moving in are often refugees. The prices
for rent and food are rising. Despite aid from abroad, Caritas and other helpers,
the country is reaching the limits of the numbers it can absorb. New rules on
entry have put a stop to the daily influx of two to three thousand people
(UNHCR estimate). Only those who have acquired a visa in Baghdad are allowed
to cross the border. In Syria, too, the majority of the refugees have no papers.
Like Emad Y. most of them want just one thing – to get away as fast as they can
from the nightmare that is Iraq.
9
Klaus Barwig
Dead end for refugees
The situation of Christians,
Yazidis and Mandeans from Iraq
The situation of the Iraqi refugees is appalling, the religious minorities among them
being the worst affected by flight and expulsion. As a neighbouring region, Europe has
a special responsibility to the Christians who have no prospect of returning home.
The disastrous situation of the Iraqi refugees is strangely at odds with the stubborn refusal of the world at large to take heed of their plight. In the view of experts,
Iraq is currently witnessing the worst refugee crisis in the Middle East since the
Palestine crisis of 1948 – and it is being played out right on Europe’s doorstep.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
estimates that around 4.5 million Iraqis are affected, roughly half of whom are
internally displaced persons, while 2.2 million people have fled in the first
instance to neighbouring countries. The main host countries are Syria, which has
taken in some 1.3 million people, Jordan (750,000), Egypt (100,000), Iran (54,000),
Lebanon (40,000) and Turkey (10,000).
UNHCR assumes that 90 per cent of the refugees are suffering from severe
trauma and that many of them have no prospects for the future whatsoever. Yet
the impression in the West is that, as a result of the general improvement in the
security situation since the autumn of 2007, the refugee problem will be eased
by many people going back home in the near future. UNHCR statistics confirm
that exactly the opposite is the case. The balance of migration into Syria remains
positive despite stricter entry regulations; the number of refugees continues to
climb, although the rate of increase is not as steep as it was in the past. In January
2008, 1,200 refugees entered the country, while 700 returned to Iraq.
Hardest hit by flight and expulsion are the religious minorities from Iraq
(Christians – including Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syrians, Armenians and a number
of other denominations – Mandeans and Yazidis), who account for around 10 per
cent of the Iraqi refugees in the neighbouring states. These minorities include a
considerable number of refugees described by UNHCR as “most vulnerable persons”. The largest non-Muslim group among the refugees, making up roughly 90
per cent of their number, are the Christians. The biggest group among the latter
are the Chaldeans, adherents of one of the oldest churches in Christendom that
is in full communion with Rome.
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Of the 1.2 million Christians who used to live in Iraq only 600,000 remain in
the country – and the number is spiralling downwards (cf. Herder Korrespondenz,
August 2007, 418 ff.). Prior to the American invasion they accounted for around 8
to 9 per cent of the population (other sources quote a figure of up to 12 per cent).
That share is now estimated to have been halved to between 3 and 4 per cent.
The high educational standard of Iraqi Christians
There is a whole host of reasons for the special persecution to which Christians
are subjected. On the one hand, they are regarded as being better off as a group
simply because of their high level of education. They are perceived as being a
distinctly affluent minority, regarded in an environment with a greater emphasis
on the Muslim faith of the majority population as being “out of place”. The Americans and Western companies, in particular, made use of this non-Muslim section
of the population with its pro-Western stance, high level of qualifications and
above-average knowledge of English, employing large numbers of Christians as
interpreters, technicians and intermediaries as well as drivers, cooks and office
and cleaning staff.
Given their minority position, the Christians in Iraq were clearly not opposed
as a group to the country’s rulers. This was true in equal measure in Syria, where
they also make up around 9 per cent of the population. The accusation of excessive
closeness to the government and the country’s rulers would indicate that there
were – and still are – some old scores to be settled.
These two factors later proved disastrous for the Christians. Victims of
violence repeatedly told of attacks related to their “collaboration with the enemy”,
which always followed the same pattern. Self-appointed “Islamic public judges”
acting in the name of Allah (experts talk of criminals released from prison by the
Americans) would stick notes to the doors of the houses where Christians lived
telling them to quit the country within 48 hours, since they had besmirched Iraqi
soil and sold their country to the Americans. Alternatively, they were told to
convert to Islam with 24 hours.
If these threats were followed by the kidnapping, torture or even the murder
of individual members of the family, the spontaneous response was to flee.
According to eyewitnesses, one of the consequences of these methods is that the
district of Dora in Baghdad, traditionally home to middle-class Christian families, has now been largely deprived of its original population.
“Northern Iraq as an alternative source of refuge within national borders”,
cited again and again in the past, is not an option (any more). This was made plain
in a decree issued by the German Ministry of the Interior on 15 May 2007. People
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on the spot report that Muslim refugees from the south of the country have in
the meantime completely exhausted the already limited resources in that part of
the country, and the regional authorities consider that the Christian presence at
its current levels constitutes the limits of what can be tolerated.
Syria is shouldering the brunt of the burden in the Iraqi refugee drama: 1.2
to 1.3 million refugees, the majority of whom only arrived in the past few
months after the bomb attacks on the Golden Mosque in Samarra, are equivalent to 10 per cent of the Syrian population.
There are several reasons for the large number of refugees: the geographical
proximity of Syria to Iraq; desert sections of the border that are difficult to control; many Iraqis with relatives in Syria; the same language spoken in the two countries; and the relatively liberal asylum Syria policy pursued up to 30 September,
by which date Iraqis could enter the country on a three-month visa (12 months
for families). Since the Syrian government initially spoke not of refugees but of
“guests”, any extension of their visas was ruled out. The issuing of a new visa could
be handled from Syria but only at the cost of 750 dollars, a prohibitive sum for
the vast majority of Iraqis living in Syria, since refugees are not granted a work
permit and therefore have to make ends meet with the help of their savings, remittances from relatives abroad or illegal casual labour.
Illegal status for Iraqis who have fled to Syria
Those wishing to maintain a legal presence in Syria were therefore obliged to appear
at the Syrian embassy in Baghdad every three months to apply for a new visa there.
It does not take much imagination to picture what it means for people, many of
them already traumatized, to have to return regularly to the places where they
were terrorised and forced out under pain of death and be forced to wait there
until they receive a new visa.
Since 30 September 2007 this situation no longer applies. On the brink of economic collapse as a result of the massive influx of Iraqi refugees, Syria announced
it was closing its borders as of this date. That meant an end to the generous visa
policy the country had pursued up to that point. The upshot was that most of
the Iraqis who had fled to Syria lost their right of residence in the country and
found themselves in a state of illegality instead. In the meantime Syria has recognised the presence of Iraqi, Palestinian and Iranian refugees. A draft “Refugee Act”
is apparently under discussion at present, but the firm political intention is to
avoid any further increase in the number of refugees nonetheless.
The Iraqi refugee drama in Syria, like that in the other countries bordering
on Iraq, is “invisible” at first sight. In contrast to Palestinian refugees, for instance,
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most of the Iraqis who have fled their country do not live in camps but in rented
accommodation (for as long as their savings and financial transfers from their
relatives last). This has meant that the price of rents and the cost of living in
Damascus have virtually doubled since the beginning of the refugee crisis.
Iraqi refugees in Syria have access to the national health system – in cases of
acute illness at least. They are thus in a much better situation here than in the
other host countries. In Jordan, for instance, a serious illness can quickly prove
fatal, because treatment is prohibitively expensive. Children can also go to school
in Syria, provided documentation is supplied of their school attendance hitherto.
However, that is an insurmountable hurdle for many families, having fled the
country in a great hurry.
Foreigners wishing to attend university in Syria have to pay annual tuition
fees of between US$7,500 and US$15,000. For the relatively well qualified Christians this normally means that the studies they interrupted in Iraq cannot be continued in their host country.
The refugees enliven the churches
While the refugees in Syria are referred to as guests and Syria is not a contracting
state of the Geneva Refugee Convention, there is nevertheless a UNHCR representation in Damascus, which has registered some 10 per cent of the refugees.
The reasons given for this modest number are delays in processing applications
and the refugees’ distrust of the United Nations. Since a large number of the
refugees, especially among the religious minorities, sees no prospect of returning to Iraq and has long decided to move on elsewhere (if possible to the U.S.A.
but at the very least to the West), registration in the country of first asylum is regarded as a risk for onward migration and asylum in the West.
How significant the Christian faith and membership of the Chaldean Church
are for the refugees becomes readily apparent during visits to Chaldean congregations in Damascus. Before the exodus from Iraq there were some 120 Chaldean
families resident in Damascus. Now some 7,000 Chaldean refugee families are
registered in the communities, around half of whom are the beneficiaries of church
aid programmes. The refugees have reinvigorated the churches, which on
Sundays are crowded with people of all ages.
Jordan has taken in the second largest group of Iraqi refugees, numbering
750,000, and they account for 13 per cent of the total population. At the outset
Jordan, too, was generous in accepting refugees from Iraq – up to just recently as
many as 2,000 to 3,000 per day. However, in contrast to Syria, anyone wishing
to enter the country had to have a visa. Visas were issued for six months, an excep-
13
tion being made for 150,000 affluent Iraqis who were given permanent visas. In
July 2007 Jordan also imposed tougher conditions for entry. Since that time only
three-month visas have been issued, which cannot be extended. Male refugees
aged between 15 and 35 are now banned from entry; exceptions are frequently
made in the case of Christians, however.
In Jordan, too, refugee policy is provisional in nature. There is no intention
of granting permanent residence, as a result of which more and more refugees
are acquiring the status of “illegal immigrants”. According to UNHCR there are
deportations, although illegal status is tolerated, even if the persons concerned
cannot afford to pay the fine of €1.50 per day. As a result of this change in
policy the influx of refugees into Jordan has more or less dried up.
Very few see any prospect of returning
In Jordan, too, the refugees live in flats in the towns and cities. Here again the
refugee crisis has been privatised and rendered invisible. The labour market is open
to refugees with legal status, albeit only in the lowest, poorly paid sector. Illegal
immigrants caught by the police doing unauthorised work face deportation.
Since the middle of 2007 Iraqi refugee children have at last been able to attend
school. In future, recognised refugees at least are to be given access to the health
system.
These moves to open up the health and education systems are indicative of
an awareness that there is little likelihood of the spontaneous refugees staying
just for a short period, returning home soon or moving on elsewhere.
When Iraqis who have fled to neighbouring countries are asked about their
prospects for the future, the overwhelming majority among the religious minorities is convinced that a return to Iraq – including to the north of the country –
is out of the question, even if peace were to prevail. The Christians who once
belonged to the middle class would no more be able to find their place in society there than the Mandeans, a religious community of formerly 30,000 to 40,000
believers, whose roots go back to John the Baptist.
Staying in the countries of first asylum appears to be an equally unrealistic
prospect, as does onward migration to other neighbouring countries in the ArabIslamic world. The refugees pin their hopes for asylum almost exclusively on Western states, especially the U.S.A., Canada or Australia, where many of them already
have family ties as a result of earlier asylum programmes.
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The European countries’ willingness to grant asylum does not
do justice to the tragedy
While that may be the case, legal onward migration to these traditional countries of asylum is thwarted by the increasing number of obstacles put in the path
of spontaneous refugees. This places a humanitarian obligation on the Western
states. As “neighbouring regions” in geographical and cultural terms they need
to consider appropriate action at the national and international/European level,
especially in respect of groups such as the Christians, Mandeans and Yazidis, whose
right of abode in their current countries of residence with largely Muslim populations will not be permanent and whose prospects of returning home must also
be regarded as the poorest of all the refugee groups. Given their refugee background
and their present situation, they will be forced into poverty in the foreseeable future
and deprived of their dignity. This will further diminish their prospects of being
granted asylum in Europe or North America, because they will increasingly come
to fit the image of the “poor refugees” that nobody in the affluent countries of
the West wishes to have.
The severity of the crisis brooks no further delay. A logical solution for the
members of religious minorities with their predominantly Western orientation
would be to establish asylum quotas. There is a special responsibility in particular towards those whose non-Muslim belief and good education predestined
them for employment with the American and British troops as civilian staff, given
that they were subsequently accused of “collaboration with the enemy” and ultimately forced to flee the country. In Great Britain a separate programme has been
introduced for this group of people. That the U.S.A. has taken in an unknown
number of former Iraqi civilian workers – especially from among the cooks, drivers and clerical staff who were “left behind” – is regarded as certain. However, there
are no verifiable figures or statements providing confirmation.
In the latest UNHCR publication there is discussion of a resettlement programme which could be organised by the Europeans and the Americans along
the lines of that carried out for the Vietnamese boat people in the 1970s, i.e. the
granting of asylum to refugees in fixed quotas outside the scope of the normal
asylum test procedures. Last year the U.S. Congress laid down a fixed quota of
7,000 persons from Iraq, although in actual fact only 4,000 were granted asylum,
which was well below the target figure. An asylum quota of an additional 4,000
persons is planned for the period up to April 2008. More generous quota solutions are under discussion in the press, but no official declarations of intent or
commitments have been made.
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Taking an illegal path
The current asylum figures from individual European countries are not commensurate with the extent of the refugee tragedy either. The Swedish resettlement
programme grants asylum to 1,800 people per year, the Finnish programme to
750 and the British and Dutch programmes to 500 people respectively (not just
Iraqi refugees).
A common European solution as part of a migration and refugee policy currently undergoing harmonisation is not yet in sight. Given the number of just under
10,000 Iraqi asylum seekers in 2006, the Swedish government suggested in early
2007 that Council Directive 2001/55/EC on the mass influx of displaced persons
should come into effect. This did not happen, however, because none of the other
EU Member States demonstrated solidarity with Sweden in pursuing the matter with
the EU Commission. The main emphasis in practical harmonisation and cooperation continues to be placed on the common securing of borders.
Taking into account the dramatic drop in the number of refugees in Germany
(19,164 initial applications in 2007 compared to 400,000 in 1992), this country
has much greater scope for a quota solution of the kind envisaged in Article 23
of the Immigration Act, even though it entails mutual agreement between the
Federal Government and the individual federal states. Comparable quota
solutions were introduced temporarily during the Balkans War and they continue
to apply to Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
The only way Iraqi refugees, most of whom are members of religious minorities, can obtain a residence permit in Germany is to go through the refugee procedure. In May of last year the German Ministry of the Interior issued a decree
characterising Christian refugees from Iraq as subject to group persecution. At the
same time northern Iraq was ruled out as an alternative for people displaced in
their own country. Not surprisingly, the recognition rate subsequently increased
to almost 93 per cent. The number of Iraqi refugees applying for asylum almost
doubled between December 2007 and January 2008.
Clearly, people have decided to get up and go, accepting the fact that the path
they take may be illegal. If they are to be recognised as refugees, they have to cover
their tracks, which involves the use of people smugglers. If they were to spurn
such assistance and make their way through a safe third country, that country
would then be obliged to assume responsibility for them, which would entail the
threat of deportation to a different third state regarded as “safe”. If that country
were Greece, the prospects of recognition would be nil: Greece has not recognised
a single refugee since 2003.
Chaldean priests (who do not have to swear a vow of celibacy) are in a very
exposed position as the representatives of their religion and they have reported
terrible attacks on their families. In a private conversation, a priest who had fled
16
to Istanbul told of how he had first escaped from Basra to Baghdad, where he was
expelled from one church after another. He, his wife and his children were
exposed to acts of violence, as were members of his congregation, some of whom
were kidnapped, killed and their corpses dumped on a rubbish tip. Having
suffered these experiences, the clearly traumatised priest no longer had the
strength to heed the appeals of his patriarch in Baghdad that he should stick it
out and stay. His bitter summary: “Never again will there be a place for Christianity
in this spot on the earth”.
Europe’s special responsibility
In contrast to the local priests the Church hierarchy urges the faithful to stay where
they are, referring to the centuries-old tradition the Church has in Mesopotamia,
the “cradle of Christianity”. That is one of the reasons why the Catholic Church
and its charitable organisations are extremely cautious at both the national and
international level in arguing the need to “keep open the prospect of a return home
at some later date”.
However, until the representatives of the “Mother Church” give priority to
resolving the fate of thousands of families trapped “in a dead end” and attach
secondary importance to diplomatic considerations and historical reminiscences,
there will be no political movement whatsoever. The preferred political objective
would clearly be for the faithful to stay and prosper together with their fellowdwellers in the region, thus averting any processes of religious cleansing. However, this objective should not be pursued to the detriment of individuals and their
personal circumstances.
The silence of the representatives of the Protestant Church in Germany, who
are not subject to the same kind of inner-church constraints as the Catholic hierarchy, is conspicuous. As long as the churches fail to stand up in public for the
refugees at both the national and European level, nothing will change in political terms.
The U.S.A. and Europe are the most obvious option for the Christians from
Iraq. On the one hand, many of them worked for the Western alliance or Western companies, which was reason enough for them to be persecuted and, on the
other, many of them have family ties there.
As a neighbouring region Europe has a special responsibility to the Christians,
who are holding out without any prospects for the future. The same applies to
the Islamic neighbouring states, which offer the Islamic refugees better prospects
for a return and thus could and should take care of them. The wealthy oil-rich
states in the region have also far from exhausted the potential they have.
17
In addition to the top priority of stabilising the situation in Iraq, which above
all else would enhance the prospects of a return home for the Islamic refugees,
this special responsibility encompasses sustained support in two respects for the
neighbouring countries, which have largely been left to their own devices in coping with the influx of refugees: firstly, by means of appropriate transfer payments,
which would avert economic destabilisation and maintain the willingness on the
part of the general public to accept further refugees; secondly, by means of quota
agreements, which would remove from the host countries the burden of looking after those refugees whose prospects for a return are clearly the poorest.
If Europe goes on shilly-shallying for much longer, however, the factors in
favour of the non-Muslim refugees will steadily diminish – the head start they
have in terms of their qualifications and their ongoing determination to acquire
a good education will be lost as time passes.
The more affluent have already lost a part of their wealth as a result of their
extended “stopover” and payments to people smugglers.
It should not be forgotten either that the religious minorities are often “most
vulnerable persons”. Those making special efforts on their behalf should bear this
UNHCR classification in mind and not worry about accusations of “favouritism”
towards individual groups of refugees.
18
Jan Bittner
Iraqi Refugees: Open Western Doors
to the Most Vulnerable
19
budget has doubled. President Bush has requested $160 million from Congress
in 2008 to provide basic health services and education for Iraqi refugees in Syria,
Jordan, and Lebanon, and $80 million to provide emergency relief supplies, health
care, and water and sanitation infrastructure to people displaced in Iraq.
Organizing humanitarian assistance is the order of the day, but these are just
the first steps. A more comprehensive approach is needed.
Time to Acknowledge Iraqi Realities
Provide Better Prospects for Refugees
The refugee crisis in Iraq did not happen overnight. After Coalition forces
achieved victory in Iraq in April 2003, it appeared that fears of millions of Iraqis
fleeing the country were unfounded. In the first two years after the fall of Saddam
Hussein, 300,000 refugees actually returned to Iraq. Since then, however, the
exodus has been enormous. Today, more than 15% of Iraqis have fled their homes.
The persistently high US expectations of progress toward greater democracy,
tolerance, prosperity and freedom make the process of acknowledging the Iraqi
realities difficult. But time is short. The northern provinces of Iraq and its
bordering countries face tremendous destabilizing consequences of the largest
refugee crisis in the Middle East since 1948.
The official US position stresses that the refugee crisis can only be solved when
there is a secure and stable Iraq.
These may be the right words for a domestic audience, but the refugees in
border countries need possibilities now. They are barred from work and running
short on funds. Their host countries’ budget shortages and security concerns must
also be addressed immediately, particularly the situation in Syria, which so far
has had the most refugee-friendly policy. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, who have
kept their borders closed, should also be asked to contribute financial help to
finding a solution.
Cooperation with the Syrian government will not be easy, given the country’s
destructive foreign policy record. On the other hand, the Syrian government is
not monolithic, and some factions are trying to open up the country. Enhanced
collaboration on refugees could help these factions prove that cooperation with
the West pays off. Perhaps this would spill over to security issues, too.
Christians Among Most Vulnerable Groups
The formerly secular society was one of the first casualties of the new religious fanaticism in Iraq. As recently published studies show, minority groups such as Christians, Sabean-Mandeans or Yezidi are among the most vulnerable groups of refugees.
Christian refugees in Damascus have reported the atrocities. They showed
me threatening letters they had received in Iraq and reported how fanatics had
forced their way into homes. Christians in Iraq today frequently face an ultimatum: either convert to Islam (giving their daughters to Mujahideen fighters
as “proof” that the conversion is serious) or leave their homes immediately. In
Istanbul, a priest of the Chaldean church recounted the final wave of violence
against the few remaining Christians in the Baghdad neighbourhood of alDora, where he was serving in 2006. Today al-Dora and many parts of the country have lost their Christian populations, and 2000 years of Christian presence
in Iraq is coming to an end.
Mobilize Resources for Humanitarian Assistance
In May 2007, the UNHCR called for an International Conference on Addressing the Humanitarian Needs of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons Inside
Iraq and in Neighbouring Countries in order to raise awareness of the international community. Since then, many countries have responded, and the UNHCR
Resettle the Most Vulnerable Refugees
For the Christian refugees, as for other minority groups, there will be no return
to Iraq in the foreseeable future. Even if the level of violence is reduced, there
is no evidence that a secular society which provides protection for religious
minorities will result. These most vulnerable refugees need shelter in the West,
and immigration quotas for refugees must be established. Quotas are also important because for refugees, they signify hope in an almost desperate situation and
thus help to stabilize the situation in the border countries.
So far UNHCR has referred 14,934 of the most vulnerable Iraqi refugees for
consideration for resettlement (75% of its target of 20,000) and 14 countries are
ready to participate in the program. By the end of September 2007, however, only
some 1,800 Iraqis had departed.
The processing time should be sped up, but that’s not the only factor. The
West must prepare to accept more of the most vulnerable Iraqi refugees, whether
through immigration quotas or through increased recognition. More countries
must participate if this crisis is to be solved.
20
Jan Bittner
The West Has Overlooked
A Major Crisis in The Middle East
After travelling to Syria, Jordan and Turkey, I left with the impression that the
West has taken no notice of the largest refugee crisis in the Middle East since
1948. According to the UNHCR officials in the region, about 4.5 million Iraqis
are on the run: 2 million are internally displaced people, while more than 2 million have sheltered in neighbouring countries. Today, Christians and other religious minorities face severe persecution in Iraq, and are among the most vulnerable group of refugees.
But there are no refugees in Syria, at least according to the Syrian government. The 1.4 million Iraqis who have arrived in recent years are known as guests
(wafidin). And there are no Iraqi refugee camps in Syria, or in Jordan, Lebanon
or Turkey, because of these countries’ experience with previous refugee crises.
As a result, there has been little media coverage of the Iraqi refugee crisis in the
western world, even though 2 million refugees have had to seek private accommodation in neighbouring countries. Their forced absorption has caused a rapid
rise in the cost of living for refugees and residents alike.
A Burden On Border Countries
Syria and Jordan, because of their geographical position, language and culture,
are the preferred destinations for most refugees. The Jordanian government has
pursued a pick-and-choose policy from the beginning, selecting only the
better-off refugees. Today 750,000 refugees live in Jordan, 100,000 refugees
have fled to Egypt, and 40,000 are in Lebanon. Turkey’s highly militarized
border with Northern Iraq has been an effective barrier, but some 10,000 have
made it anyhow, and most are waiting in Istanbul to depart for the West. But it
is Syria, above all other countries, which has absorbed the highest number.
Changing Conditions In Syria
The Syrian government allowed Iraqis to enter the country without a visa and
opened its schools and health care system to Iraqi children, a surprising policy
considering the country’s destructive record in the region. One might see the
21
policy as a strategy of the al-Assad government – the image of Syria as a safe haven
for refugees supplanting the “rogue state” label – but the strategy has not paid
off. With more than 1.4 million refugees (about 7% of the Syrian population),
the society is starting to reach capacity. Today, some parts of Damascus are populated almost exclusively by Iraqis. This month, the Syrian government closed
its borders to most Iraqis (excepting professionals such as engineers or doctors).
The “guests” already staying in Syria are expected to return to Iraq and apply
for visas at the Syrian embassy in Baghdad.
Problems For Internal Stability
Two sets of problems have arisen from the Syrian government’s formerly generous policy. First, the budget is under stress, as energy, health care, food and
transportation are highly subsidized by the government. Even though refugees
were often part of the former Iraqi middle class and have their own savings or
family support, the highly regulated economy is too inflexible to absorb such
numbers. Second, the Syrian regime fears that imported political tensions will
threaten the country’s iron-fisted stability. Refugees without permission to work
become part of the growing shadow economy. Others, dependent on external
support, become more and more desperate by the lack of prospects.
Additionally, the huge influx of refugees (2500 per day) made it difficult for
the Syrian government to prevent the infiltration of Mujahideen fighters. In the
eyes of religious fanatics, the secular government of Basher al-Assad and its Baath
Party are as evil as the Saddam regime was. Even though the Assad regime itself
is suspected to have fuelled the Iraqi civil war during the first years (trying to weaken the US’ ability to act in the region) it now fears the conflict could spill over.
A Humanitarian Crisis and a Geopolitical Problem
All of Iraq’s neighbours share fears that the humanitarian crisis has become unmanageable. Growing tensions between the Turkish army and the Kurdish extremists
are not the only symptom of spillover; the huge flows of Iraqi migration threaten
stability in other border countries. The West must not use the lack of media
coverage as an excuse to ignore the problem. The refugee crisis in the Middle East
presents a serious geopolitical risk, and the transatlantic partners need to address
it.
22
Harald Dörig
The flight of religious minorities from
Iraq – Impressions from a journey with
a delegation of experts to countries
of asylum in the Middle East
In October 2007, a group of 13 people travelled to three of Iraq's neighbouring
countries under the auspices of the Human Rights Office of the Pontifical
Mission Society, missio1. We were impressed by the huge number of Iraqi refugees
offered temporary shelter by Syria and Jordan. Iraqi Christians and other religious minorities are under especial threat of persecution. Experts in the region
speak of “the greatest refugee disaster in the Middle East since 1948”2.
1. The situation in Iraq
A Chaldean Christian woman from Baghdad told us of how one morning her
husband was abducted and in the evening she found his dead body in a sack
dropped outside her front door. His body showed signs of terrible torture. A note
was attached to the front door by self-proclaimed Islamic judges demanding that
she and her family leave the country within 48 hours. It said that Christians had
sullied Iraqi soil and sold it to the Americans. They should leave, otherwise the
walls of their house would collapse on top of them. The woman subsequently
fled with her family to Syria.
A Chaldean man who had fled from Iraq to Jordan told us in Damascus why
he was forced to flee. Radical Muslims had brutally murdered his son and called
him on his son's mobile phone saying that the surviving members of his Christian family should leave the country within 24 hours or risk the same fate. The
family hurriedly packed their things, leaving all their other possessions behind.
On the way to the airport their money was also taken away from them before
they could leave Iraq.
A Chaldean priest who fled to Istanbul told us that he was first driven out
of Basra by radical Muslims and then from several churches in Baghdad. He and
his family were beaten and threatened, church buildings were destroyed, parishioners were kidnapped, murdered and their bodies thrown on the rubbish heap.
The Chaldean patriarch urged him time and again to hold out, but he could not
23
take it any longer. “Christianity will never have a chance in this part of the world",
was the priest's bitter summary.
Unlike the priests and parishioners on the ground, some senior church figures are calling for Christians to remain in Iraq. In the many discussions we had
with bishops and patriarchs from different Christian communities they emphasised
that the Middle East was the birthplace of Christianity. In the 9th century 80
million Christians lived there, today there are just three million. Christians are
a minority in Iraq. Church estimates indicate that some 600,000 Christians still
live in the country (compared to 1.2 million in 2003). Over the past century the
proportion of Christians in Iraq has dropped from over 20% – many say 30% –
to 2-3%. The largest denominations are the Chaldean Church (which has ties with
the Vatican), the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Assyrian Church of the East.
Church authorities understandably find it difficult to give in to radical Muslims and renounce the homeland of Christianity. This is particularly true of the
Chaldean, Assyrian and Armenian Orthodox bishops. At the same time they
expressed their great understanding for their parishioners who had fled, while emphasising that it was the bishop’s duty to be the last to abandon ship. The Assyrian priests,
with whom we spoke in Damascus, see themselves as Iraq’s original inhabitants and
they wish to return there once peace has been re-established. On the other hand,
the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch, Zakka Iwas, openly acknowledges that he has given
up all hope of a future for Christians in Iraq. His assessment of the situation is that
the Christians’ only chance is to convert or leave the country, and he is very sorry
that he has lived to see this day.
2. The number of refugees inside and outside Iraq
At the start of the war in 2003, Iraq had a population of roughly 25 million. Since
then almost 4.5 million Iraqis have become refugees. According to UNHCR figures, roughly half of these are internally displaced. Around 2.2 million Iraqis are
thought to be staying in neighbouring countries as refugees, and the estimate
for each country is as follows:
1.2 - 1.3 million in Syria
750,000 in Jordan
100,000 in Egypt
54,000 in Iran
40,000 in Lebanon
10,000 in Turkey
Up to 10% of the Iraqi refugees are from non-Muslim minorities (of which
roughly 90% are Christians, the rest being Mandeans and Yazidis).
24
3. Syria as a country of asylum
Syria has taken in the most Iraqi refugees, between 1.2 and 1.3 million, which
is equivalent to roughly 7% of the Syrian population. There are municipalities
in Syria where there are no Syrians any more, only Iraqis. Syria is the preferred
destination of fleeing Iraqis because of its geographical proximity, common
language, links with family members or friends living there and a lower cost of
living than in Jordan. Until recently it was also easier to enter Syria than other
neighbouring countries since Iraqis did not need a visa, although after three
months they had to leave the country again to renew their entry stamp at the
Syrian Embassy in Baghdad. Every day 2,000 Iraqis crossed the Syrian border. This
changed on 1 October 2007. Now a visa must be applied for before entering the
country, because the Syrian state regards its asylum capacity as exhausted. Our
local church sources also confirmed that ”the boat is full”, that Syria is in
danger of ”economic collapse” and that other solutions are now required. It is
still unclear, though, whether the Syrian state will use the new visa regulations
to refuse not only new applications but also applications for extensions so as to
reduce the number of refugees in the country. After all, a Syrian visa can only
be applied for in Baghdad, while in Jordan this is possible once refugees are inside
the country and even over the Internet. It is worth remembering that the
Syrian state treats the refugees as ‘guests’ (wafidin) and expects them to leave the
country again after a certain period of time.
One problem we were told about was that refugees cannot obtain a work permit, which puts them in a difficult financial situation. At the same time prices
for accommodation and food are rising because of the large numbers of refugees.
We were also impressed by the fact that all the Iraqi refugees find accommodation in rented flats and that a far smaller number are housed in pilgrimage centres; there are no refugee camps of the kind familiar elsewhere in the Middle East,
for example for Palestinian refugees. Refugees pay for their accommodation with
the money they have bought with them (which for many has since been used
up), by means of money transfers from family members abroad and through work
on the black market. The illicit work done by refugees, frequently also by children from the age of eight, is badly paid. Impoverished Iraqis are calling for tents
and camps, but the Syrian state does not want the Iraqis to be thought of as
refugees and is also concerned about the country's security.
For many families it is also a problem for a family member - usually the father
- to travel every three months to Baghdad to extend their residence permit, given
that Christians in particular are exposed to great danger there. Permits issued to
families with children of school age run for one year, at least.
In most cases Iraqi refugees have the same access to the health and education systems in Syria as the local population. However, to be admitted to a Syr-
25
ian school, Iraqi children must present a document proving their school attendance to date, which is often not possible, because the refugees naturally left Iraq
unprepared and in a hurry. Iraqi university students must resign themselves to
temporarily giving up their studies, since the universities consider them as
foreigners and charge them tuition fees of between US$7,500 and US$15,000 a
year.
Syria is not a signatory of the Geneva Refugee Convention. As we were told
by our contact at UNHCR in Damascus, only 120,000 Iraqi refugees, i.e. 10% of
the total, are registered with UNHCR. This is allegedly because the refugees
distrust UN organisations, but it is also due to the long delay in processing
registrations at the UNHCR representation in the city. The office there appeared
much less equal to the task than those in Jordan and Turkey. The procedure for
recognising refugees has been simplified: the UNHCR assumes on a prima facie
basis that the 1.2 to 1.3 million Iraqis in Syria are refugees as defined by the Geneva Refugee Convention and grants them the corresponding protection status.
So far this procedure has been recognized in principle by the Syrian state.
Nevertheless, it is still occasionally the case that Iraqis with refugee documents
are deported and refugees are turned back at the border.
The level of protection given to Christians in Syria is comparable to that provided for Muslims. The Christian communities there have been kept very busy.
Before the outbreak of the Iraq War, 120 Chaldean families lived in Damascus,
now 7,000 Chaldean families from Iraq have joined them – and that is just in
Damascus. The parishes there are doing their best, the churches are full again,
and the Christian district is vibrant. Several Christian communities have their
own churches, there are pictures of the Virgin Mary on many street corners and
only a few women are veiled – you could be forgiven for thinking you are somewhere in a district of Athens. Yet the refugees have no prospects. They cannot
return to Iraq or do not want to; they are not supposed to stay long in Syria and
only very few will succeed in emigrating to the United States or Europe. Syria is
considered a ”rogue state” by the USA, with which it only grudgingly reaches
agreements or helps with problems.
4. Jordan as a country of asylum
Jordan has taken in the second largest number of Iraqi refugees, 750,000 in all,
which is equivalent to roughly 13% of Jordan's population of 6 million. As in
Syria, the fall of the former Iraqi regime saw the Jordanian authorities very willing at first to take in Iraqi refugees, who were usually given a six-month residence
permit. Until recently between 2,000 and 3,000 people crossed the border every
day from Iraq into Jordan. Unlike the situation in Syria, however, refugees in Jor-
26
dan required a visa from the outset. 150,000 (mainly wealthy) Iraqis received permanent residence permits; the others are regarded as ‘guests’ (wafidin), who are
expected to leave the country again after a certain period of time. Since July 2007,
refugees are only given a single residence permit lasting for three months,
which cannot be extended. Male refugees aged 15 to 35 are barred from entering the country on security grounds, though the authorities often make an exception for Christians. When the residence permit expires, the refugees become illegal immigrants. This means that, when they leave the country at some later date,
they are obliged to pay a fine of 1.5JD = €1.5 per person for every day they have
spent there without a residence permit. They can then be arrested and deported, which still happens time and again. According to our contact at the UNHCR
in Amman, however, the majority of illegal migrants are tolerated and not
deported. Several refugees told us they had been living in Amman for years, but
did not have the money to pay the fines. One of the Christian refugees pointed to his grey hair and said people respected him because of his age.
Due to the strict passport and entry formalities the influx of Iraqi refugees
into Jordan has fallen sharply over the past few months, with only a few Iraqi
refugees crossing the border into Jordan at the moment. In Jordan, Iraqi refugees
also live in flats rather than in refugee camps. An encouraging development is
that since mid-2007 Jordan has opened its school system to Iraqi children, and
recognized refugees are soon to have free access to health care. Iraqis can legally work for the duration of their residence permit, although the labour market
is already saturated and unemployment is high. Hence they generally only find
work if they are prepared to accept poor conditions. The refugees are even more
badly paid after their residence permit has expired, since as illegal migrants they
are fobbed off with low wages. If they are picked up by the police, they risk imprisonment and deportation to Iraq. Given the large number of refugees in Jordan,
our sources there also believe that the “boat is now full” and that other solutions
must be found for Iraqi refugees rather than increasing their numbers in Jordan.
Jordan, like Syria, is not a signatory of the Geneva Refugee Convention.
Unlike Syria, though, Jordan does not automatically accept the UNHCR’s recognition of refugees, but operates on a case-by-case basis. Only 30,000 Iraqi
refugees have registered with UNHCR there and registration generally protects
them against deportation. If an illegally employed Iraqi is picked up by the police
after his three-month residence permit has expired, he will normally be released
again if he can prove he has registered with UNHCR. As in Syria, refugees from
southern and central Iraq are recognized by UNHCR on a prima facie basis and
those from northern Iraq on a case-by-case basis. This prima facie recognition
is not accepted by Jordan, although the relevant status is awarded on a case-by-
27
case basis for particularly endangered people, provided it has approved the
recognition. In such instances the refugee is issued with a “blue card”. Prima facie
refugees who have been accepted in the USA or other Western countries also
receive these “blue cards”. Even refugees recognised by the state are banned from
working. The Iraqi refugees registered with UNHCR in early October 2007 were
classified by religion as follows: 39% Sunnis, 34% Shiites, 16% Christians, 5%
Sabeans, and 7 Yazidis.
Our conversations with Christian refugees in Amman showed that the vast
majority wanted to emigrate to the United States, Australia or Europe. They had
no hope of returning to a peaceful Iraq, where they could live as they did before
the war in 2003.
5. Turkey as a country of asylum
Fewer Iraqis have sought refuge in Turkey than in Syria or Jordan. There are roughly 10,000 refugees in the country, 4,250 of whom have registered with UNHCR.
Our source at UNHCR in Ankara was surprised that not more Iraqi refugees had
come to Turkey. The border is heavily guarded, however. So far Turkey has only
recognized the Geneva Refugee Convention for refugees from Europe. According to a Turkish regulation dating from 1994, non-European refugees can only
receive protection for a limited time as asylum seekers. If they register with the
Turkish authorities they will not be deported. Turkey also tolerates refugees who
are only registered with UNHCR. The procedure for recognising refugees at
UNHCR is very similar to that used in Jordan. By 2012, the Geneva Refugee Convention is to apply without any geographical limits as part of the process of
harmonisation with European standards. Starting in late 2007, the German
Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, supported by Slovenia and Hungary,
will instruct the Turkish immigration authorities in the laws and practices for
recognizing refugees in compliance with EU standards.
Refugees have problems in Turkey, however, if they want to earn a living. Even
those who fulfil the registration requirements may only work in Turkey if the job
cannot be filled by a Turkish national. As the UNHCR representative in Ankara
told us, not one single refugee has found legal employment in this way. Iraqi
refugees in Istanbul told us that, before a self-help association called Kasder was
founded by several Christian organisations, they were constantly at risk of being
detained by the police and deported to Iraq if they were caught working illegally.
The hard work of the Chaldean Patriarchal Vicar Francois Yakan, with the help
of Kasder, has at least meant that the authorities normally speak to him first before
taking further steps and in some cases refrain from them entirely.
28
A major problem for Iraqi refugees in Turkey is the language barrier, which
makes it difficult to communicate with the authorities and look for work. 44%
of Iraqi refugees live in Istanbul. According to government information, the
remainder is spread throughout the provincial towns in central Anatolia. 39%
of the Iraqis registered with UNHCR are Christians. In Istanbul they can at least
hope to find (illegal) work for members of the Christian parish and it is helpful
that many local Christians who come from south-eastern Turkey also speak
Arabic. In Istanbul we spoke to refugee families in which one or several family
members had this kind of job. From Turkey many refugees succeed in emigrating
legally to the USA or other countries of asylum. In January 2007, the USA set an
immigration quota of 1,800 for Iraqi refugees from Turkey. A further quota is
planned for 2008.
6. Asylum in Europe
Many of the people we talked to – both government and church representatives
– are in favour of European countries setting asylum quotas for Iraqi refugees.
The government representatives think it is reasonable for the burdens resulting
from the 2003 Iraq war to be shared. For the overwhelming majority of Christians who have fled Iraq returning to their homes is an inconceivable prospect.
Many believe a combination of measures is the best idea: re-establishing peace
in Iraq, stabilising the remaining centres of Christian life there, supporting
Iraq’s neighbours in looking after refugees and providing asylum for some of the
refugees in the United States, Europe and other wealthy countries. Germany could
follow the example it set when it took in 35,000 Vietnamese boat people in the
early 80s3. Christians and other religious minorities suffering from rigorous persecution could be given preference if such a refugee quota system were to be introduced.
Notes
1 With the support of the Academy of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart
2 Among them Roland Schilling from UNHCR in Ankara
3 Cf. Federal Government Preamble of 7 February 2003 to Section 23, Paragraph 2 of the Residence Law, Bundestag
printed paper 15/420, p. 77f.
29
Iris Escherle
Report on an official trip to the Middle East/
Situation of the non-Muslim,
primarily Christian, refugees from Iraq
in the neighbouring countries
1. Reason, purpose and itinerary
The official trip took place from 30 September to 8 October 2007 at the invitation
and initiative of Dr. Oehring, missio, and Mr. Barwig of the diocese of Rottenburg.
The aim of the trip to Syria, Jordan and Turkey was to enable the participants to
gain an up-to-date and personal impression of the situation of the non-Muslim,
primarily Christian, refugees from Iraq and then to pass on their findings in their
respective capacities as employees of Members of the German Bundestag, judges,
journalists and representatives of public authorities. The participants in the factfinding mission also had an opportunity for an exchange of views on what they
had seen and heard, especially on matters relating to asylum legislation. The
Federal Office for Migration and Refugees was seen as an important source of
competence on such matters and was therefore invited to send a participant.
The Federal Office nominated Ms. Escherle to participate in this trip.
The other members of the group were:
Eltje Aderholt, Alliance 90/The Greens parliamentary group in the German Bundestag (foreign policy adviser, employee of Jürgen Trittin, Member of the German Bundestag, on loan from the Federal Foreign Office)
Jan Bittner, CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the German Bundestag (foreign,
security and European policy adviser)
Dr. Peter Reuss, CSU Landtag group in the German Bundestag (foreign policy
adviser employed by Peter Ramsauer, Member of the German Bundestag, on loan
from the Federal Foreign Office)
Dr. Harald Dörig, judge at the Federal Administrative Court
Ferdinand Georgen, judge at the Wiesbaden Administrative Court
Dr. Paul Thiedemann, judge at the Frankfurt Administrative Court
Edgar Auth, journalist working for the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper
Stefan von Kempis, journalist at the German Department of Radio Vatican
30
Carol Lupu, journalist in the family affairs department of the Bayerischer Rundfunk broadcasting station
Christopher Hein, head of the Italian Refugee Council
Klaus Barwig, expert on refugee and asylum policy at the Academy of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart
Dr. Otmar Oehring, head of the Human Rights Office, missio Aachen
Mgr. François Yakan, religious head of the Chaldeans in Turkey and co-founder
of KASDER, a registered society supporting Christian refugees from Iraq in
Turkey
Dr. Gerald Bidawid, Vice-President of KASDER and active in refugee relief in a
private capacity.
Talks were arranged with representatives of the larger Christian communities as
well as with official bodies and aid agencies to give the participants a well-founded
overview in the limited time available of the situation facing especially the Christian refugees from Iraq in Damascus, Amman, Ankara and Istanbul. Special importance was attached to giving the members of the fact-finding mission to Syria,
Jordan and Turkey an opportunity to make personal contact with Iraqi refugees
and to learn at first hand about their experiences and circumstances.
It should be emphasised that there was a balanced selection of suitable interlocutors in the countries visited. They provided an extensive overall view of the
ideas and opinions of the different religious representatives and of the organisations working in the respective countries.
The outcome of all the talks and travel impressions form the basis of the
following description and assessment of the journey.
2. Current situation of the non-Muslim, predominantly
Christian, refugees from Iraq in the neighbouring countries
A detailed description of the trip and a condensed account of the content of the
discussions are preceded by a brief summary of the situation of the Christian
minority among the Iraqi refugees in the three asylum countries, which is valid
for the region as a whole. The unanimous assessment of the participants in the
fact-finding mission was that this is the biggest refugee disaster in the Middle
East since 1948.
There are 14 Christian communities in the region affected by the persecution in Iraq, the largest among them being that of the Chaldeans, who have ties
with the Vatican. There is currently no real cooperation between the individual
Christian groups and they lack a co-ordinated approach. One reason for this may
31
well be that the individual religious leaders do not wish to see any weakening
of their claim to sole leadership. On the other hand, some church representatives urge their members to hold out and stay in the region, whilst others
assume that a return of the refugees to Iraq is no longer possible and that the
solution to the problem lies in their resettlement in Western countries.
The situation for Syria and Jordan, in particular, as well as for the refugees
they harbour is dramatic. Syria is currently home to some 1.3 million Iraqi
refugees, around one million of them in Damascus. It can be assumed that there
are between 70,000 and 100,000 Christians among these refugees. In Jordan, mostly in Amman, there are in the region of 750,000 Iraqi refugees, including some
70,000 Christians. The figures are difficult to ascertain, because there are no precise surveys and only a small number of the refugees are registered with UNHCR.
The refugees are not housed in camps, which the asylum countries do not
tolerate because of their negative visual impact, but live in normal accommodation in the cities. This has led to a housing shortage and an explosion in rent
prices (a one-room flat with kitchen and bathroom costs €400 on average). The
refugees work, assuming they can find a job at all, for half the normal wages,
which is having a tremendous impact both on the native population and the
economy. There are fears of extensive social unrest and long-term social and political destabilisation in the region, which cannot cope in either economic or organisational terms with the number of refugees, who mostly support themselves by
living off their savings or with financial help from relatives resident abroad.
Prior to their escape most of the Christian refugees in Iraq cooperated with
American or Western organisations and companies or with the military. They
are therefore regarded as collaborators and subjected to especial persecution.
Flyers urge Christians throughout Iraq to leave the country or face the threat of
death. It is assumed that they will receive help from the West in doing so. There
is hardly a refugee family that has not lost at least one of its members or suffered acts of cruelty. They have all been deprived of their livelihood in Iraq and
have little prospects for the future in the asylum countries; this has left them
all seriously traumatised. Most of the refugees are very well educated, have a Western appearance and attitude and thus offer considerable integration potential.
As a result of the large numbers of refugees (between 2,000 and 3,000 people
entering Syria and Jordan every day) and the ensuing problems, the two countries
decided to change their residence and visa regulations as of 1 October 2007. Syria
had previously been relatively generous in letting people in, the entry stamps
in their passports having to be renewed at the embassy in Baghdad every three
months. Now the extension of the entry stamps and the issuing of visas are
handled exclusively at the embassy in Baghdad. According to the refugees,
32
travelling to Baghdad for this purpose entails a stay of about two months,
which often ends in the death of those making the journey. This practice has
now been changed, as a result of which only businessmen and academics are
given the visas they need for first-time entry into the country. Families with
children of school age are entitled to stay in the country until the end of the
school year. Refugees are granted access to the education and health systems in
Syria. In Jordan the refugees are tolerated, i.e. they are regarded as guests who,
it is assumed, will leave the country again. Since their stay is mostly not legalised,
the status of the refugees must be regarded as dubious. Entry into Jordan always
required a compulsory visa. 150,000 Iraqis, mostly with the requisite financial
resources, have been given permanent residence permits. Since July 2007,
refugees have received a non-extendable, three-month residence permit. Nonadherence to this regulation gives offenders the status of illegals. The names of
the refugees are noted down when they enter the country and they are thus
obliged to pay a ‘residence charge’ of €1.50 per person per day if they remain in
the country without a permit. Up until a few months ago the refugees had no
access to schools and state medical care. In summary, Syria and Jordan are
aware of their obligation as neighbours to take in refugees and so far they have
lived up to this commitment with a great degree of tolerance. But this should
not obscure the fact that the question of residence as such depends on the goodwill of government authorities and does not rest on any sound legal footing. The
asylum states have reached the point at which they feel ‘the boat is full’. It remains
to be seen how the situation will develop in the near future as a result of the
changed conditions of entry. At all events, there is likely to be an increase in the
number of people emigrating to the West with the help of refugee smugglers.
Christian refugees from Iraq have also sought asylum in Turkey, albeit in
much smaller numbers. This has to do with the strict border controls, the high
cost of living and language barriers. The situation of the refugees in Turkey is
little different from that of the refugees in Syria and Jordan. As a result of the
efforts made by Mgr. Yakan, to which I shall return later, and of Christian organisations a large number of Christian refugees have been resettled, primarily in
the USA.
In all three countries the refugees who apply to UNHCR are recognised as
such. In my view, however, applications are processed very slowly and the figures for those who have registered are well below that of the actual number of
refugees. While the percentage of Christians who register is relatively high compared to the Muslims, the UNHCR representatives on the spot make it clear that
they do not wish to see preferential treatment given to Christians.
33
3. Stay in Damascus, 1/2 October 2007
Given that the fact-finding mission to Syria was not supposed to attract too much
attention and government organisations were not to get wind of it as such, the
participants stayed at the Memorial Saint Paul – Tabbaleh guest house in Damascus. On the first day of our stay Sister Claude Naddaf, who received the French
Human Rights Prize last year, told us about the situation of the Iraqi refugees
and the work carried out by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in Damascus.
Although the Sisters’ refugee relief work does not enjoy official recognition, it
is supported by government bodies, which value the work the nuns do. The two
nuns personally look after 1,395 families in a part of the city. They said that the
situation of the refugees had deteriorated considerably recently. Society was
becoming increasingly impoverished, most of the refugee families were split up
and looking for other family members; expensive medical treatment posed a
serious problem; courses of study and training were often out of the question
because of the costs involved. Not being organised along tribal lines, Christian
families had less protection than Muslims; they had left a great deal behind in
their homeland and were suffering from severe trauma. The sheer number of
refugees entering the country had undermined the initial solidarity demonstrated
by the Syrians and refugees no longer found work in the factories. In the eyes
of the nuns, a return to Iraq was out of the question for Christians. Threats were
also made to their lives in hate mail, in which they were made jointly responsible for the situation in Iraq. Northern Iraq did not constitute an alternative
source of asylum within the country, since the local authorities and inhabitants
there were not prepared to take in refugees and the cost of living (rents of
between 700 and 800 dollars) was unaffordable.
Honour killings of women and suchlike also existed among Christians,
they said.
Discussions were subsequently held with Chaldean Bishop Antoine Audo
(Jesuit) in a community in Damascus. The bishop thinks it is important that Christians should remain in their countries of origin, but cannot persuade anyone to
stay. 100 years ago there was one church in Baghdad and before the American invasion there were 25. The Christians originally came from the north of Iraq and he
himself sees a future there for the Christians, even though there is a lack of jobs
at present. 70% of the figure he gave of 100,000 Christian refugees from Iraq received
support from abroad. The Chaldean community supplied food for their fellowbelievers (although this is no more than a drop in the ocean – the participants in
the fact-finding mission were present when food was distributed), supported
these refugees and helped them to register with UNHCR. Before the outbreak of
the Iraq War 120 Chaldean families had lived in Damascus; now there were 7,000.
34
In the evening, at the time the fast was broken, groups of two participants,
accompanied by an English-speaking refugee guide, visited refugee families. The
visits were conducted very discreetly to avoid putting the families in jeopardy
or risking them being questioned by the secret service. The families described
what had happened to them in a consistently moving manner; their situation
is depressing. In a number of cases there had been kidnappings, threats and murders before they had fled. Some families were in dire financial straits because of
illness and operations. Rents for flats, mostly without windows, usually cost
between €300 and €500. They are unanimous in seeing their future abroad where
they have relatives (almost all have relatives in Germany, but they prefer to go
to America, largely because of the language factor); moving to northern Iraq is
ruled out because of the dangerous situation there as well as for economic
reasons and is rejected as an unrealistic option. According to a 14-year-old boy,
there were 20 Iraqi refugee children in a class of 32 pupils.
Sarah, a young woman in her early twenties, is a typical example. She studied
medicine in Baghdad, where her father worked for UNICEF. He was killed the
day before he was to be transferred to a quieter area. She now lives with her mother
in Damascus, cannot study there because of the high tuition fees, will lose her
visa and become an illegal. She can see no realistic, appropriate future for herself.
The next day the group travelled about an hour from Damascus to Sednaya,
which has a view of the mountains in Lebanon and is completely Christian. This
is the seat of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch, Zakka Iwas, with whom we had discussions. The patriarch himself hails from Iraq and worked there for a long time.
In his opinion, times have never been so bad for Christians in the region. Under
Saddam Hussein they had no problems attending church and were able to move
around freely. At the moment anyone returning to Iraq risked being killed. In
Syria people helped as far they could, but there was no real place for Christians
anywhere. He raised the open question as to how it was possible that so many
Muslims were able to emigrate, for whom there was so much room the world
over, yet the Christians were stranded and unable to move. So many fanatics were
heading for the West. The patriarch saw no future for the Christians in Germany
either, which had already opened up its churches in the past, leading to the temporary establishment of an independent Syriac Orthodox culture.
At mid-day there were discussions with the Metropolitan of Homs, Archbishop Isidor Bathikha, who has excellent contacts with the Syrian head of state
and feels that Christians ought to hold out in the region.
The visit to the local UNHCR office was unsatisfactory, because the responsible officer was not prepared to divulge information about the circumstances
of the Christians and did not regard them as being in a special situation. (Indignant and impolite, dubious). He said there were areas where no Syrians lived any
35
more, and enough was enough. He confirmed that there was a daily influx of
3,000 refugees and that some 120,000 refugees from Iraq, i.e. about 10% of the
overall number, were currently registered with UNHCR. Most of them were from
a middle-class background. UNHCR assumed on a prima facie basis that all the
roughly 1.3 million refugees were refugees as defined in the Geneva Convention.
This was also the view of the Syrian state.
In the early evening there was a meeting with the spiritual leader of the Mandeans, a religious minority recognised neither by Christians nor Muslims and
who therefore fall between all stools. There were currently around 10,000 Mandeans in Syria and 3,000 in Jordan. This group had no other place in the world
it could go to. Hence if this tiny community were to be obliterated, it would mean
the end of the religion as such.
A discussion was then held with priests of the Nestorians, 8,000 of whom
are currently in Syria. If things improve in Iraq, they all want to return. They
consider themselves the original inhabitants of Iraq. They did not want any
financial support, but a peaceful place to live. There was no prospect of them
returning to Iraq at the moment, however. They support the Protestant church
in propagating the Ninive project, as it is called, which envisages Christians
settling in a certain area of northern Iraq.
This project is rejected by the other Christian communities, however, since
the area is in a central location, provides no opportunities to escape in the event
of attacks and does not encompass any of the Christian villages that have existed
since time immemorial. It could not be assumed that there would be any acceptance of their presence on the part of local Kurdish Muslims.
4. Stay in Amman, 3/4 October 2007
In the morning we paid a visit to the Caritas Director, Wael Sulaiman, who said
that the organisation had been working in Jordan for the past 14 years. Caritas
provided medical aid, supported the educational system and distributed food.
All told there were 750,000 Iraqi refugees, 70,000 of whom were Christians. Only
15,000 had registered, however. 70% of the people Caritas looked after were Christians. 90% of all the Iraqis in Jordan were living there illegally. Most of the refugees
regarded Jordan as no more than a springboard to the West. There were no camps,
the refugees being accommodated in private housing. It could be assumed that
Jordan was unable to cope with the demands being placed on its health and
education systems. In the past these had only been open to UNHCR refugees.
Mr. Sulaiman considered it to be the task of the Christian communities to
improve their cooperation.
36
During our subsequent visit to Mr. Ra´ed Bahou, Regional Director of the Pontifical Mission, the papal agency for Middle East relief and development, we were
told that the very mixed group of refugees was changing the face of society in
Jordan and that the country was no longer stable. There were very many poor
Jordanians who also needed support if trouble was to be avoided. The system of
compulsory visas that had now been introduced had created new problems. None
of the refugees wanted to return to Iraq, however. There was no plan for Iraq,
which was controlled by Iran. In his view, there were currently 500,000 armed
Iranians in Iraq and he could well foresee a blitzkrieg from the air against Iran.
Islam in Iraq was no longer tolerant but exclusively fanatical; there was no longer
any respect for dignitaries. The problems began after the collapse of Saddam
Hussein’s repressive regime, after the educated classes left the country and the
fanatics moved in. Above all, there was a lack of organisation and coordination
among the Christians in the region. As a result of the unstable situation and outbreaks of cholera there was no alternative source of asylum within the country.
A visit was then paid to Franciscan nuns, who help to look after Iraqi
refugees in Amman, providing them above all with pastoral care and organising various courses. The nuns had arranged a meeting with around 100 Chaldean
refugees from Iraq. A number of them reported on what had happened to them
before they had left their homeland. A mother, both of whose daughters had
worked in an American textiles factory, said that they had been shot dead by
‘terrorists’. I myself talked to a man who had studied at a German commercial
college, worked for many years in Baghdad for a German company and latterly been employed as a translator for an American aid agency. He speaks six
languages. After some of his fellow-translators had been killed, he fled to
Jordan with his family. In contrast to the aforementioned mother, who lost both
her daughters, this man is already recognised as a UNHCR refugee; other refugees
have not even succeeded in arranging appointments with UNHCR. He hinted
that, as a translator and a shrewd person, he had a clear-cut advantage over others in this respect; he thought that individual cases were definitely treated differently. As a result of the highly charged atmosphere and the growing realisation
among the refugees that the fact-finding group was there merely to gather information and not in a position to offer practical assistance to individual refugees,
the meeting threatened to get out of hand. The refugees felt they were being left
in the lurch by the West, for which they had all worked in various capacities.
In the evening we were invited to visit Mr. Bidawid, a former general under
Saddam Hussein, who had escaped from Baghdad. He told us about what he
regarded as possible ways of improving the present situation in Iraq and bringing peace to the country. He spoke of a group of 75 former generals, who were
willing and able to form an interim military government and to free Iraq from
37
the Iranian militias now in the country. Readers are referred here to the article
published in the Frankfurter Rundschau, which was written by Edgar Auth, one
of the journalists in the group, and posted online on 9 October 2007.
The following morning we visited the Reverend Raymond Mossalli of the
group of Chaldean Christians in Amman. He has a very small church that can
barely accommodate the large number of believers. The prevailing circumstances
meant there was an increasing number of marriages between Christian girls and
Muslim men, which was a problem for the Church, he said. On the other hand,
there were also Muslims who wished to convert ‘because they were in love’, a
development of which he himself did not approve. To be on the safe side he did
not undertake any baptisms. He advised such couples to emigrate to Europe. From
the point of view of the state, it was possible for a Muslim man to marry a Christian woman, but not for a Muslim woman to marry a Christian man. In his opinion, conversion depended on the attitude of the family to religion. Here again
refugee families were present at the meeting and reported on their experiences.
They included an engineer whose son had been killed because he was a church
activist and who had had all his goods and valuables confiscated when leaving
the country. The hate mail Christians had received had made it clear that they
could not stay any longer. There was no security in northern Iraq and the cost
of living there was too high. Even in Amman the rent for a flat was between 300
and 500 dollars. Moving from Jordan to stay in Syria presented no problems, but
it was very difficult to move from Syria to Jordan.
The ensuing talks with the UNHCR representative revealed that of the
750,000 Iraqi refugees currently in Jordan only 150,000 had legal status. 30,000
people had registered with UNHCR (some 16% of them Christians), which as a
rule afforded them protection against deportation. The situation of the refugees
was difficult, since they were (officially) not allowed to work and had no money.
3,000 refugees had left for America this year. Jordan was opposed to any automatic recognition of refugees on the basis of prima facie evidence, according to
which the mere fact that a Christian came from central Iraq was tantamount to
persecution. It preferred a case-by-case review, whereas UNHCR assumed there
was group persecution. Refugees recognised by both the state and UNHCR had
the opportunity to emigrate abroad within six months. Earlier on, many more
people had believed they would be able to return to Iraq; now nobody believed
in that prospect any more. Integration in Jordan was ruled out because of the
situation there and a return to Iraq was out of the question because of the conditions in the country, leaving the refugees with just one option: emigration. The
Jordanian state was showing the utmost tolerance towards the refugees, otherwise most of them would have already had to leave the country.
38
The following visit to the Syriac Orthodox Reverend Emmanuel Al-Bana
underlined once more the differences between the individual representatives of
the churches. The priest, who gave an audience for refugees in our presence, held
court in medieval style and we were ‘listeners by his grace’. He also assumed that
we would take some of the sick and ailing with us. He had no knowledge
whatsoever of any local aid agencies such as Caritas or UNHCR, which were clearly
not reconcilable with his self-image.
Mr. Bidawid also arranged for us to meet the Jordanian deputy minister of
the interior. He asked the European countries to help resolve the refugee issue,
seeing the granting of asylum to some of the refugees by the West, including
Germany, as a solution. He emphasized that cooperation with Germany was good.
Security in Jordan was at risk and investments were being made in this field to
mitigate it. “If your neighbour’s house is burning, you extinguish the flames to
make sure your own house doesn’t catch fire”. Hence Jordan was showing great
tolerance in taking in refugees from Iraq, recognizing that there was a need for
it to do so.
In the evening we were visited in our hotel by the Primate of the Armenian
Apostolic Church in Iraq, Archbishop Avak Asadourian, who had come from
Baghdad to tell us about the situation there. He said that 2,000 families living in
the district of Dora, which was a ‘little Vatican’ consisting solely of Christian inhabitants, had been driven from their homes there. Some of them had fled to northern Iraq, which he considered to be relatively safe. In former times 9% of the Iraqi
population had been Christians; now that figure was just 4%. People were more
concerned about their safety than democracy. There was no infrastructure any more
and electricity was only available for short periods during the day. Iraqi society as
such was loath to let the Christians go. Iraq was a rich country and he personally saw his future there. The situation had improved over the past three months.
In his view the Americans had not consistently tried to bring about security. If security were to be restored, Muslims and Christians would live peacefully together again.
Since people listened to their ‘leaders’ and did what they said, the population would
follow them if they were agreed amongst themselves.
5. Stay in Ankara and Istanbul, 5 to 7 October 2007
After our arrival in Ankara we were informed by Mr. Schilling from UNHCR about
the situation there. He told us that Turkey had signed the Geneva Refugee Convention in 1962, although it reserved the right to grant asylum only to refugees from
Europe. Turkey used to be purely a transit country. However, following the introduction of the third-country regulation, mandatory procedures were now increasingly being carried out with regard to Turkey. In the event of recognition, asylum
39
was organised abroad, making it possible to talk of a kind of temporary refuge until
the non-European refugees emigrated. The main countries of origin were Iran and
Iraq. Asylum procedures for Iraqis had begun at the end of 2006. UNHCR and the
countries concerned had waited too long, however, thus incurring a burden of guilt
with respect to overall developments. Asylum could, in principle, only be obtained
from UNHCR and, since the situation was first observed over a period of years, the
applicants had to wait for ages and the procedures took a correspondingly long time.
With regard to the Christians from central Iraq, it was now assumed that they were
subject to group persecution, unless there were grounds for exclusion. Such grounds
were currently being examined in 90 cases and it was up to the Turkish state to decide
on possible subsidiary protection. There was no alternative source of asylum in northern Iraq, since there were already two million internally displaced persons there.
While there was greater security, the many Kurds living there constituted a potential source of conflict, as did the many fundamentalists, and there was no housing
available either. Fewer refugees made their way to Turkey than to the Middle East,
since life in Turkey was more difficult, the borders were sealed and the cost of
living was high. An asylum quota of 8,000 persons was envisaged in Turkey. To date,
some 4,500 of the roughly 10,000 refugees had been registered and half of them
earmarked for emigration to the USA. It was assumed that, in addition to the 50,000
Turkmens living illegally in Turkey, there were a further 30,000 illegals in the
country. In cases where no application for asylum had been filed, refugees picked
up were subject to deportation. UNHCR’s work in Turkey was more successful than
in Syria and Jordan, because the organisation had been around much longer in
Turkey. 70% of the persons leaving Turkey were Christians. At the moment there
were 1,800 Christian refugees in Istanbul. Turkey stood by the reform process and
planned to develop an asylum and migration system by the year 2012. However,
the right to asylum had been deleted from the planned constitution on 8 October
2007.
In a subsequent discussion, the head of the International Office for Migration in Ankara, Maurizio Busatti, explained the work of his organisation in conjunction with the transport of emigrating refugees and the support given them.
He put the number of illegals in Turkey in 2006 at 51,000.
The representative of the European Commission in Turkey, Ms. Camelia Suica,
expressed the view that, as a result of the new visa regulations in Syria and Jordan, many Iraqis could come to Turkey. She saw a European problem in this
refugee disaster and asked a rhetorical question about the position of the EU.
Turkey was mainly concerned about how it could get rid of the refugees again.
Attention was also drawn to future cooperation with the Federal Office for
Migration and Refugees in Germany, which is to provide instruction and assistance for Turkish authorities dealing with asylum matters from the end of 2007.
40
In the evening there was a discussion with Jesuit Father Dr. Felix Körner, who
works as a priest in a former Armenian church on the premises of the French
Embassy. He has also lectured occasionally at the University of Ankara, although
these lectures were very quickly discontinued because there was not thought to
be any need for them. Some 80 members of the congregation attend the
Sunday service. According to Father Felix, visitors to the church are observed and
protected by discreetly positioned plain-clothes officers. On the issue of
conversion he said that there were a few people who turned to him for that
purpose. However, it was only after three years of instruction in the catechism,
regular help in the church and an examination of the individual’s conviction
that a baptism took place. The few converts who had chosen this path now lived
in seminaries in Europe. Conversion depended very much on the family and its
acceptance of the decision.
In Istanbul the group visited the congregation of one of the members of the
fact-finding mission, Patriachal Vicar François Yakan, who manages the affairs
of the (Chaldean) Christians in Turkey from a former Greek Orthodox Church
building. This building is one of two in Turkey that actually belongs to the Church;
ownership of all the other buildings is uncertain. However, improvements have
been brought about here thanks to the efforts of the Church in the field of monument preservation, refurbishment of the buildings and conversion work.
Despite many difficulties, François Yakan succeeded in setting up KASDER, a
society to help refugees from Iraq, enabling them to open and run their own
schools and set up branches all over the world. Sixteen people work voluntarily for KASDER, which was established in 2004 and has 270 members led by Yakan.
The society works on behalf of Christians on a cross-denominational basis. The
Turkish government has officially thanked him for his social commitment. 2,816
Christian refugees from Iraq are currently registered with the society, which supports legalisation of their residence, since this is seen as offering the best prospects
of aid being provided. There is good cooperation with government offices and
relative security in Istanbul. For example, there is an agreement whereby
Christians caught performing illegal work are not deported. Thanks to Yakan’s
dedicated work, including at the UN, several hundred refugees have been able to
emigrate to America through the auspices of the International Office for Migration.
A priest from Basra in Iraq provided details of his escape from Iraq. At
Christmas 2006, church congregations were told by ‘terrorists’ to take down the
crosses and not to preach any sermons, otherwise the priest’s church would be
laid waste. Threatening letters were sent out and the district of Dora was
emptied. There were also violent attacks. Contrary to the instruction of his Church
superior he had fled to Turkey with his family.
41
Finally, there was an evening visit to a refugee family living in a flat in a part
of the city previously populated by Greeks. The family received threatening
letters before leaving the country. Given the language problems the family has,
it is difficult for treatment to be found for one of the children, who was injured
by a car bomb in Iraq. The money for the treatment comes from relatives
abroad, as does the money to pay the rent. The father and the eldest daughter
work for low pay. Here again they hope to be able to emigrate to the West.
42
Ferdinand Georgen
Future prospects for members
of non-Muslim minorities living as
refugees in countries bordering on Iraq
In the first week of October a group of experts went on a fact-finding mission
to Syria, Jordan and Turkey, all of which border on Iraq. The purpose was to find
out more about the situation of members of Christian minorities who had
either fled or been expelled from Iraq. The journey was organised by the
Pontifical Mission Society, missio, in close cooperation with the diocese of
Rottenburg-Stuttgart. The group consisted of one representative each of these
organisations, a representative of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees,
research associates from the CDU/CSU and Alliance 90/The Greens parliamentary groups in the German Bundestag, the head of the Italian Refugee Council,
journalists from the Frankfurter Rundschau, Bayerischer Rundfunk and Radio
Vatican and three administrative court judges. Accompanying us on the
journey from and to Istanbul was the Chaldean Patriarchal Vicar in Istanbul.
The wide range of discussions we had with refugees in particular, but also
with representatives of various Christian churches, i.e. their bishops, archbishops,
priests, patriarchs and the Sheikh of the Mandeans, as well as with nuns, representatives of the local UNHCR offices and of the EU delegation in Ankara plus
representatives of Caritas and the International Organisation for Migration
were intended to help us form a picture of the situation facing the refugees.
There are some 14 Christian churches in Iraq plus the Mandeans, who do
not regard themselves as a Christian church since they attribute their origins to
John the Baptist, and the Yazidis.
Following the military intervention in Iraq the country’s Christian minorities, in particular, have suffered from years of uncertainty and attacks by
Muslim groups. My impression from the discussions we had is that one reason
for the special situation confronting the Christian minorities in Iraq is their alleged
proximity to the former dictatorial regime as well as to the U.S. and British troops
now occupying the country. Moreover, the main countries supplying the interventionist forces are Christian and the accusation levelled against them is that
they are engaged in a ‘crusade’ against the Muslim countries.
43
The present situation represents the biggest refugee disaster in the Middle
East since 1948. All told, there are some 4.5 million Iraqi refugees, more than
half of whom are internally displaced persons in Iraq itself. Iraqis who have fled
abroad have found asylum in Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt. The main
brunt of the refugee burden is being borne by Syria and Jordan. Syria has given
asylum to around 1.2 million Iraqi refugees, Jordan to some 750,000 and Turkey
to about 10,000. If the figures for Syria and Jordan were to be transferred
proportionately to the German context, this country’s population would have
swollen by anything between five and well over 10 million people.
Damascus, Syria
The situation in Syria, as described in the many conversations we had with
refugees, church figures and representatives of international organisations, is as
follows.
Like in Jordan and Turkey, which we also visited, the refugees in Syria are
not housed in camps. Palestinians, by contrast, are accommodated in camps close
to the border in both Syria and Jordan.
The accommodation the Iraqi refugees find depends on their ability to pay,
however. Hence there are calls for refugees with very limited financial resources
to be housed in camps so that they can stay in the country without suffering
any great financial burden.
The UNHCR representative said that latterly some 2,000 to 3,000 Iraqi
refugees per day were crossing the border into Syria. Only about 10% of the 1.2
million refugees had registered with UNHCR. One of the reasons for this, according to several of the people we talked to, was that a sense of personal honour
prevented people from describing themselves as being in need of help and from
revealing their identity or place of origin.
Some 10% of the total number of refugees are Christians. Describing the
situation of the Mandeans, their leader said that, before Saddam Hussein’s
regime was toppled, 35,000 members of his religious community had lived in
Iraq. That figure had now dropped to 4,000. The Sheikh saw no prospect of the
Mandeans returning to Iraq since, as far as he knew, the new Iraqi constitution
envisaged a de facto ban on non-Muslims residing in the country. He said there
would no longer be any place for minorities in Iraq.
The 1.2 million Iraqis are to all intents and purposes assimilated in Syria and
live in houses or rented accommodation. Entry into the country was initially
possible without any formal requirements, but that changed on 1 October 2007,
when a compulsory visa system was introduced. The visa issued is valid for three
44
months and can only be extended at the Syrian diplomatic mission in Baghdad.
This causes considerable problems, particularly since people may well have fled
the country because of threats to their lives there. As is the case in Jordan, the
refugees in Syria are not regarded as such but as ‘guests’, because there are fears
that their stay might otherwise become long-term or permanent. Guests, on the
other hand, return to where they came from after an appropriate length of stay.
Like in Jordan, there is a general job ban. While it was initially possible to find
suitably paid work (there were even instances of refugees being paid more than
Syrians themselves out of a sense of solidarity), that is no longer the case. In other
words the cost of living, including food, rent and so on, has to be paid for out
of the money the refugees brought with them. The run on accommodation has
led to a steep increase in rents. In both the working world and the housing market there is competition between the refugees and the local population. Women
can generally work as home helps and adolescent sons as carriers at marketplaces.
The visit we paid to the Chaldean community in Damascus illustrated the
situation facing this Christian minority. Whereas just 120 families had lived in
the community before the tide of refugees set in, they have been joined by a further 7,000 families over the past few years. The community is using whatever
means it has itself plus money raised from donations to provide the newly arrived
families with food and other everyday necessities.
The Sisters of the Good Shepherd arranged meetings and talks with Christian families in Damascus. These families see no prospect of being able to stay
in Iraq. The refugees come mostly from Baghdad or southern Iraq. Among the
reasons cited time and again for their decision to flee the country were demands
made on them, sometimes in writing, that they should quit the country within 24 hours leaving everything behind them, otherwise their families would be
killed. In a number of cases the alternative to leaving the country was to convert
to Islam. Even in those cases in which conversion was the preferred option,
little changed as regards the threats they faced. One family was reported as
having converted to Islam, given the tremendous pressure it was subjected to.
The husband was then called upon to hand over his wife and daughter so that
they could be married off to Muslims. He saw no other way out than to shoot
his wife, his daughter and then himself. Another family – a married couple and
their five children – talked of the threatened abduction of their eldest daughter, aged 16, if they refused to pay a sum of 6,000 dollars. They decided to pay,
but the threats continued, the female members of the family being told that they
should conform to Islamic rules on dress. This ultimately prompted the family
to leave Iraq. Yet another family – a married couple and their 10-year-old daughter
– made numerous efforts to obtain an entry visa to Australia and were
45
ultimately successful. But when the Australian embassy discovered that the
child was severely handicapped, permission was withdrawn, leaving the family
with a feeling of helplessness and disorientation. One other family – two brothers,
their mother and the daughter of one of the brothers (this was a Muslim family,
the nuns helping all those in need irrespective of their origins) – said the
reason for their departure was that the hairdressing salon run by one of the
brothers was blown up, completely destroying the premises. Before the family
could leave Iraq, the wife of one of the brothers died of cancer. Her daughter,
now aged 11, had also contracted cancer, but the family couldn’t afford the 500
dollars needed to pay for the next chemotherapy she needed. The family had
spent years in Syria and used up all their money. Since emigration to a Western
country was out of the question, they had no choice but to return to Iraq.
It was emphasised time and again that in Syria, like in Jordan, Christians
and Muslims lived peacefully side by side, provided certain limits were adhered
to. Reference was made to the fact that there had been no hatred between the
religious groups prior to the hostilities in Iraq. The current attacks on Christian
minorities were attributable in part to fanatical Muslim groups or were outright
criminal acts.
None of the Christians could conceive of returning to Iraq. However,
staying in Syria or Jordan as countries of asylum seemed an equally unlikely
prospect. The sole alternative envisaged was to emigrate to a Western country,
the USA being the preferred destination.
The representatives of the Christian churches described the dilemma facing
the Christian minorities in Iraq in graphic terms, saying that the flight from Iraq
posed a serious threat to the continued existence of their churches, whose roots
and traditions stretched back over many centuries. Unless small groups of members
of these churches were able to emigrate together to a third country, there was
every prospect of the churches disappearing for ever. While they were well
aware of the dangers that existed, the representatives of the Christian churches
nevertheless expressed the need for Christians to remain in Iraq to ensure the
continued existence of their communities.
A Chaldean priest (in Istanbul) said he had fled to Baghdad after receiving
a death threat in his parish in Basra. His Patriarch in Baghdad assigned him to
a new parish and, his life being in extreme danger, he agreed with his bishop to
switch parishes several times. Ultimately, however, there was no way of stopping
church property being ransacked and the threats on his life continued, so he
decided to flee the country.
46
Amman, Jordan
The Jordanian capital, Amman, has developed in leaps and bounds. In the mid1920s the population was a mere 4,000, whereas now the city has 1.8 million
inhabitants. During our journeys through the city we saw large new residential
states that had either been completed or were still under construction. The cost
of living is much higher than in Syria.
The Jordanian government accepts no refugees. Entry into the country
must be preceded by registration and the issuing of a visa. Iraqi ‘guests’ are not
allowed to work, but their children can attend school and general medical care
is provided, as is the case in Syria.
Although visas are compulsory and an infringement of this regulation
entails a fine of 1.50 Jordanian dinars per person and day, the majority of Iraqi
refugees do not comply and thus live illegally in Jordan. This is a well-known
fact, but there are no consequences except in a few cases.
Franciscan nuns we talked to in Amman said the biggest problem the Christian refugees faced was a sense of desperation, since there was no way they could
return to Iraq. On the other hand, it was impossible for them to stay where they
had been granted asylum or to move on to a third country.
A former Iraqi army general we talked to said the reason for the instability,
continued fighting and attacks in the country – and thus the lack of security –
was the presence of between 300,000 and 500,000 militiamen from Iran in Iraq,
who were there to destabilize the country.
We also talked to refugees in Jordan. A married couple (the husband worked
in the oil ministry) fled from southern Iraq after his son, a Christian activist, had
been shot and they themselves had been told to quit the country within 24 hours
leaving all their possessions behind them. On their way to the airport the couple
were stopped again and forced to hand over most of their cash, since they had
been told not to take anything with them at all. A large number of those present
said they had sons, daughters or spouses living in Western countries such as
Australia, the USA or Sweden but couldn’t join them because entry visas were
not issued.
The local UNHCR representative thought there were no more than 150,000
legal refugees in Jordan, most of whom were tolerated and would not be expelled.
In both Jordan and Syria the UNHCR bases its decision to grant refugee status
to refugees from southern and central Iraq on prima facie evidence.
During a discussion in Amman the Armenian Archbishop of Baghdad
described the situation of the Christians as one in which they were deprived of
all rights. In his parish many people had been kidnapped and 46 of them killed.
Some 2,000 families had been expelled from the district of Dora in Baghdad, where
47
many Christian families had lived. In the past, 9% of the population in Iraq had
been Christians, whereas now that figure had dropped to just 4%. The USA had
granted asylum to 7,000 Iraqis in 2007 and was planning to take in a further
12,000 in 2008.
Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey
The UNHCR representative in Ankara described Turkey as being primarily a transit
country. Here, too, recognition of the status of refugees from southern and
central Iraq rests on prima facie evidence, while refugees from northern Iraq are
examined on a case-by-case basis. Turkey was not involved itself in any asylum
procedures, since this was the task of UNHCR, which also attended to the
onward migration of the persons concerned. Of 4,200 people who had registered
2,400 had moved on to the USA. Nobody knew the exact number of refugees;
estimates ranged between 10,000 and 50,000.
UNHCR does not consider northern Iraq to be an alternative location for
asylum inside the country – a view shared by everyone we talked to. There were
internally displaced persons – Kurds, for instance – who had lived in central or
southern Iraq and were now returning to northern Iraq. Only those who
belonged to a tribe enjoyed protection and help in finding a job and somewhere
to live. Since Christians were not organised along tribal lines, this source of assistance was ruled out. The cost of living in northern Iraq was reported to be very
high. A two-room flat there cost between 700 and 800 dollars as compared to
just 200 dollars in Damascus, for example. There were not enough jobs, to say
nothing of the problems with Turkey and Iran.
During our visit to the Chaldean church in Istanbul we also had discussions
with refugees, who confirmed what we had already been told.
48
49
Summary
Stefan von Kempis
– In the light of the discussions held and the impressions gained during the factfinding mission, it strikes me that recognition of refugee status on the basis
of prima facie evidence is understandable and correct.
“Only the Pope can help us.”
Iraqi refugees caught between all stools
– The unanimous view of all the people we talked to in Syria, Jordan and Turkey
was that northern Iraq does not constitute an alternative asylum area. This
appears to me to be a logical and accurate assessment.
– The main asylum countries, Syria and Jordan, have an extremely arduous
burden to bear, having taken in a total of two million refugees. There is no way
of knowing whether the current stable political situation in both countries can
be maintained in the future. If destabilisation were to occur as a result of the
large numbers of refugees and their lack of any prospects for the future, the
repercussions would be felt throughout the Middle East, particularly if
military options extending beyond Iraq were to be exercised. So it seems to
me to be absolutely essential that Western countries should help shoulder the
burden currently being borne by Syria and Jordan, since ultimately the
reason for the millions of refugees and their plight is the Western military
intervention in Iraq.
– For humanitarian reasons I consider it to be a matter of the utmost urgency
that families should be reunited, thereby allowing parents to live with their
children and spouses in Western countries.
– Around 10% of the total number of refugees belong to Christian minorities.
Arranging quotas to give these refugees asylum in the West seems to me to be
both proper and necessary for humanitarian reasons.
Iraq may have a newly appointed cardinal, but there are very few Christians left in the
country. War and terror are putting an end to one of the oldest Christian dioceses that
has existed for 1,500 years. The bishops are helpless spectators of this mass exodus. “The
only thing that can help us now is a visit from the Pope“, say refugees trapped in countries bordering on Iraq. An investigation.
Damaskus. The Patriarch of Antioch sighs and strokes his beard as the steam
rises from the small coffee cup next to him: “I wish I’d died a few years ago. That
would have been better than watching the decline of my people”. The source
of such grave concern to the Syrian Orthodox priest is one of the biggest refugee
disasters of modern times. Day by day thousands of people are leaving Iraq to
escape the violence there. Some are the victims of brutal expulsion. Many are
members of non-Islamic minorities, who apparently no longer see any place for
themselves in Iraq in view of the struggle for power between the Shiites, Sunnites and Kurds. Yazidis, Mandeans and, above all, Christians are therefore taking
a few belongings and moving to Damascus, Amman or Istanbul, from where they
hope to be able to emigrate to Europe or the U.S.A.
“The West ought really to look after us”, says the patriarch, who hails from
Iraq. “After all, the West is to blame for the war in Iraq and all the misery we
have suffered”. The head of the small religious community of the Mandeans holds
similar views. This deeply religious, bearded and bespectacled man, who is sat
in a garden in Damascus the same evening, says: “Before the war we had 35,000
members spread all over Iraq. Now there are just four to five thousand of us left
there. And they are afraid to reveal themselves as Mandeans in case they incur
the anger of fanatical Muslims”. He refuses to give his name for fear of reprisals
against members of his family still in Iraq. There is no one to follow in his footsteps. He is the representative of a dying religion.
George Bush’s war in Iraq has triggered the greatest – and least visible –
humanitarian crisis in the Middle East since 1948. This is because the families
leaving Iraq travel quite normally to the capitals of the neighbouring countries
and rent accommodation there using whatever financial means they can draw
on. It’s only for a short while, they think, and there won’t be any problem travelling on to the West (which for the Christians means to their fellow-believers).
50
Now, however, five years after the start of the latest Iraq War, the vast majority
are still stuck in their apartments and are slowly but surely running out of money.
They are not allowed to work in their new environment. Irrespective of whether
they are in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon or Turkey, they are merely tolerated as
“guests” who are expected to leave again soon. New visa regulations and
instances of harassment are a sign that the authorities are slowly beginning to
lose patience with their “guests”.
Situated not far from the splendid old Hejaz railway station in Damascus is
a dusty quarter which, on closer inspection, turns out to be swarming with Iraqis
who have rented accommodation there. Making our way up the back stairs to
the roof storey and looking into the overcrowded rooms exposes us to heartrending stories. “We come from Mosul”, says the careworn head of a family. “In
spring 2006 the Islamists wanted my children to swear on the Koran at school.
They threatened us that if we did not become Muslims we would all be killed –
and so we fled”. The story the refugees have to tell is identical with only minor
variations in detail. The man from Mosul has been lucky in the circumstances.
He has found a job working on the black market in Damascus for starvation wages
well below what a Syrian would earn. But the fact that his children cannot go
to school here and that, as a man accustomed to carrying out instructions, he
is now forced to spend half the day brooding over his fate at home without any
prospect of being able to move anywhere else makes the whole family very
depressed. The waiting, the shame, the lack of any rights weigh heavily on the
refugees, as does the fact that their money is running out. What can they do when
it is all gone?
Amman. Approaching Jordan’s capital from the air, you can see the old Iraqi
air fleet in a corner of the airport, which was flown out of the country before
the invasion of the “Coalition of the Willing”. The planes have the semblance
of giant birds and, in a way, they too are refugees from Iraq. Amman is a
modern city built on hills. Refugees sitting together in the backyard room of a
community of Christian nuns do not pause for thought when asked where they
would like to go: “Imrika!” - America. Nobody is keen on returning to Iraq, since,
in their eyes, it is ruled by Islamic fanatics bent on setting up a theocracy.
“What have we got to oppose them? We have no one to protect us in Iraq, no
militias of our own …We just want to live an ordinary life: have a job and a place
at school for our kids.” The ventilator hums. “My husband was a taxi driver”,
says a black-haired woman. “They kidnapped and murdered him and then they
rang me up on his mobile a few days later to say that we could come and
collect his corpse. After that they kept on ringing up on his mobile and
threatening us”. “I was a translator for the Americans”, says a man with a
51
moustache, “Look, here’s a letter of confirmation from the commander of the
battalion. My wife was a cleaner for the Americans. You can’t just leave us here
to rot! Get us out of here! Tell the Pope to come – he’s the only one who can
help us”. Many others agree with him; the atmosphere is tense and some
people start crying.
In the hotels of Amman it is easy to come across guests who have just arrived
overnight from Mosul or who want to return to Baghdad this same day.
General S. O., for example. A former member of Saddam’s close-knit group of
leaders, he looks disturbingly like the executed dictator. He is a little shorter,
however, and his gelled hair is not as full and wavy as that of the former “rais”.
“The Iranians are responsible for the persecution of the minorities and a great
deal of the terror“, he claims. His recipe for peace is to return Saddam’s former
generals to power, dissolve the parliament (which he ridicules), set up a military
council and introduce a state of emergency. Once things have been put back in
order in Iraq and the Iranians kicked out, half the refugees could “perhaps” return
“some time”.
The deputy minister of the interior, a friendly elderly gentleman, is also in
favour of the refugees returning home. Their presence in Jordan is causing
prices to rise and generating disquiet in the country: “We’re reaching the
limits of what we can do for them.” In the long term, he feels, it would be impossible for the new arrivals to be integrated into this small desert state. That might
well upset the delicate internal balance – an argument that can also be heard in
Syria and Lebanon. “The Christian minorities here in the Middle East are partly to blame for what has happened to them”, says a Lebanese over lunch in a
restaurant. “They always back the rulers and exaggerate their loyalty. And those
in power, who often come from a minority themselves, get their support in return
from such minorities and thus keep the majority in the country at bay. Saddam
was a Sunni, for example, not a Shiite like the majority in Iraq. Or take Assad in
Syria: an Alevite and not a Sunni … But if the ruler is toppled, as was the case
with Saddam, the minorities are thrown out. Should the Assad regime be ousted one day, the Syrian Christians would have to leave the country. That’s the
way things are here in the Middle East. The Christians may have been present
in the Euphrates region for centuries, but they would vanish in just a few years.”
The Armenian Orthodox Archbishop of Baghdad, who happened to be
passing through Amman, has become something of a cynic due to the constant
proximity of death: “If you get hit by a bomb, you get hit by a bomb. That’s the
way it is”, he mumbles. He himself was not “really” under threat. When asked,
however, he recalled that Muslim extremists had quickly expelled more than 2,000
Christian families from one district of Baghdad alone. That was certainly true.
52
But could he assert there was no future for Christians and other minorities in
Iraq as a result? “What do you propose?”, the bishop asked. “Should we perhaps
evacuate all the members of minorities from Iraq?”
Rome. On a cold day in February 2008 a group of church representatives come
together in a conference room of the Sant Egidio community in Rome to
deliberate on Christianity in the Middle East and the exodus from Iraq. All the
participants in the discussion are agreed that the Christians are important as
guarantors of “pluralism” in the majority Islamic setting. While that may be true
in principle, the fact is that they are leaving the region in droves – not just the
crisis-stricken areas but also the largely stable countries, Cardinal Leonardo
Sandri of the Congregation of Eastern Churches remarks. This was an inexorable
exodus and one which, as far as Iraq was concerned, had begun not after the fall
of Saddam, but very much earlier, the Latin Archbishop of Baghdad, JeanBenjamin Sleiman, added. In fact, the exodus was not the outcome of the war,
but had been brought about by “structural factors”. The tribal structures in the
country, which were still intact despite the war and violence, were depriving the
Christians of the air they needed to breathe. Tribal thinking knew “no tolerance,
no alternative ways of living and no laws, but only verbal agreements” – and it
encouraged Islamic fundamentalism. The widespread feeling among Christians
was: “This is no longer our country“.
And yet Sleiman is, in his own words, “repeatedly shocked” by “how
radically the Christians are burning their bridges behind them when they go and
are not contemplating returning to Iraq at all”. He is in favour of them staying
in the country, come what may – a statement he makes against his own better
judgement. For at the same time it is perfectly clear to him that “basically they
no longer have a future in Iraq – and, what is even worse, they never did have
a future there”. “But perhaps a “miracle” will take place”, Sleiman says. His contradictory attitude is typical of most of the churchmen in the region: “Christians,
you have no future here, but stay all the same”. This is a mantra repeated time
and again with oriental persistence, which perhaps only serves to exacerbate the
situation of the refugees and expellees, who already find themselves caught
between all stools.
Perhaps the motto in the West will soon be: “We are all oriental Christians”.
That is the hope voiced by the French intellectual, Régis Debray, a former comrade-in-arms of Che Guevara. He sees “certain points of contact” between antiSemitism in Europe in the 20th century and today’s anti-Christian slogans in
the Middle East. And he knows why the West will never show any real interest
in Christians in the Middle East. They are “too oriental for the right wing and
too Christian for the left wing“. “A tragedy“, says Syrian professor Habib F., who
53
is among the audience and knows many Iraqi refugees from his home town of
Aleppo. “The refugees are in a real quandary. They don’t want to go back to face
the terror again, they are not allowed to stay in the country they have fled to,
and the West is cold-shouldering them. Honestly, the only solution would be
for the Pope to travel through the region and, in particular, visit the Iraqi
refugees. That would focus world public attention on this immense problem at
long last.”
These victims of the Iraqi conflict do not fit into any scheme of things. There
is nowhere else they can go. “Only a miracle can help us”, says Baghdad’s Archbishop Sleiman.
Their last hope is the Pope.
UNHCR estimates that there are 4.5 million Iraqi refugees, roughly half of
whom are internally displaced persons. 90 per cent are regarded as severely traumatised. There are approximately 1.3 million Iraqi refugees in Syria alone. Many
refugees belong to non-Islamic minorities; the largest non-Islamic group among
them (approx. 90%) are the Chaldean Christians. As a result of the exodus their
share of the Iraqi population has been halved over the past five years. Despite
all the reports of an alleged improvement of the situation in Iraq the number
of refugees continues to climb.
54
Otmar Oehring
Like after the Vietnam War
Today’s boat people:
Why 30,000 non-Muslim refugees
from Iraq need a home in Germany
After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, some 500,000 Vietnamese attempted to
flee the country in boats. Hence the name boat people. Germany decided to take
in a fixed quota of these refugees – around 30,000. There is now good reason to
recall this humanitarian deed.
Scant public attention has so far been paid to the Iraqi refugees heading for
Europe from Lebanese, Syrian and Turkish ports. People smugglers, who occasionally demand 10,000 dollars from a single refugee, help them on their way.
So far the number of people bent on getting to Europe is limited. But it could
increase dramatically. Representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees are now talking of the greatest refugee disaster in the Middle East since 1948. They put the number of Iraqis fleeing from the civil war at
4.4 million. Around 50% are internally displaced persons. The other half have
been taken in by neighbouring countries. About 1.5 million Iraqi refugees live
in Syria, some 750,000 in Jordan, around 40,000 in Lebanon and 10,000 in Turkey.
The refugees who left Iraq in 2003 prior to or immediately after the attack
by the US-led troops thought they would soon be returning to their country. Today
no one can conceive of peace being restored in Iraq or of refugees returning from
neighbouring countries. On the contrary, the situation fuels the fear that even
more people will turn their backs on Iraq. Up to the end of September there was
a daily influx of up to 3,000 refugees into Syria and Jordan.
It is not just a concern about infiltration by terrorists or their sympathisers
that has prompted the governments of the region to steadily tighten the rules
on admission for refugees. On 1 October, Jordan and Syria introduced compulsory visas for Iraqis. The sheer numbers of refugees already pose a problem,
although they are not noticeable on the streets. They don’t live in tents but in
homes – where the poorer locals live. The prices for food and housing are rising.
The refugees are penetrating the labour market. All this is having an impact on
the socio-economic fabric and security.
55
Jordan has taken in a handful of prosperous refugees on a long-term basis.
For the rest of the refugees the situation is pretty hopeless. All of them, including Sunnis and Shiites, have fled from the violence and uncertainty in Iraq. They
will not be able to return in the short term and only if the USA and Iran do not
engage in a long-term feud on Iraqi soil. The tribal structures of the Sunnis and
Shiites could then provide protection again and enable them to reintegrate into
society.
By contrast, the situation facing the non-Muslim minorities – Christians,
Mandeans and Yazidis – is far more critical and without exception precarious.
Christians run the risk of becoming the victims of politically motivated acts of
violence. They are regarded as collaborators of the multinational coalition
troops led by the ‘Christian’ USA and hence as traitors. Moreover, Christians are
seen and treated by the majority Muslim Iraqi population as unbelievers. They
are confronted with attempts at forced conversion. They are punished for
infringements of Islamic laws governing dress, for serving or selling alcohol, for
violating the ban on images (e.g. the taking of pictures by photographers) and
for not adhering to the ban on any physical contact with Muslims (e.g. as
hairdressers, doctors etc.) imposed on them because they are unclean persons.
Physical and psychological threats, the kidnapping of children and women in
particular, robbery, grievous bodily harm and murder are everyday occurrences.
That Christians should flee as a last resort is perfectly understandable.
The situation of the Mandeans and Yazidis is no less precarious, especially
since they – in contrast to the Christians – are not even regarded as adherents
of a religion of the Book, but quite simply as godless infidels. A return to Iraq is
out of the question for the non-Muslim refugees. They have fled from the traumatising conditions in Iraq and are now in supposed safety but under conditions
that are no less traumatising. In Syria and Jordan they are wafidin, guests who
are expected to leave again. In Lebanon they are illegals, in Turkey they are merely tolerated – in every case without a permanent right of residence, devoid of
material security, deprived of any prospect of return and a future.
While the vast majority of Iraqi church leaders advocate the maintenance
of a Christian presence in Iraq even under the present circumstances – which
one can understand – many of the over 150,000 Christians who are already in
the neighbouring countries will not return to Iraq under any circumstances. Nor
will they go to Kurdish controlled northern Iraq – and definitely not if the
Turkish army should march in there.
In the late 1970s some 30,000 Vietnamese were given a new home in
Germany. In the 1980s and 1990s tens of thousands of refugees from south-east
Turkey – primarily Christians and Yazidis – came to this country. As was the case
56
then, we can naturally wait again now until the Iraqi refugees arrive here with
the help of people smugglers, which is likely to be only a matter of time.
It would, however, be more sensible – and certainly more humane – if we
were to take the initiative ourselves this time. If we were to decide to take in at
least 20,000, better still 30,000, members of non-Muslim minorities, Christians,
Mandeans and Yazidis, from Iraq. At the same time the governments of
countries bordering on Iraq must be given political and material assistance in
coping with the presence of huge numbers of refugees. After all, a solution to
their plight will only be found after peace has returned to Iraq.
57
Paul Tiedemann
Non-Muslim minorities in Iraq
Account of a journey
1. The journey
“This is the biggest refugee disaster since 1948” said Roland Schilling, acting head
of the UNHCR office in Ankara, when our group arrived in Turkey. Its 13 members
consisted of administrative court judges, a representative of the Federal Office
for Migration and Refugees, research associates from the CDU/CSU parliamentary
group and the parliamentary group of the Greens in the German Bundestag, the
head of the Italian Council of Refugees and a number of journalists. We had come
to find out the facts about the situation of the non-Muslim minorities inside Iraq
and of the non-Muslim refugees outside Iraq.
The organiser of the journey, the Pontifical Mission Society missio in Aachen,
had given us an opportunity to do so in the first week of October 2007, during
which we had numerous conversations with representatives of Christian and nonChristian groups and organisations, relief agencies, government representatives, UNHCR officials and, above all, with many non-Muslim refugees from Iraq
whom we met in Damascus (Syria), Amman (Jordan) and Istanbul.1
2. General situation of the refugees
The many meetings we had gave rise to the following assessment of the situation. Whereas the 1948 Palestine War produced a total of 870,000 refugees, which
has in the meantime swollen to around 3.7 million due to the marked growth
in the population2, there are already 4.5 million Iraqi refugees. That is about 20
per cent of the entire Iraqi population based on the figures for 2003. According
to UNHCR half of them are internally displaced persons, while 2.2 million have
fled to neighbouring countries. The vast majority of the Iraqi refugees (about 1.3
million) are in Syria. An estimated 750,000 are in Jordan, 100,000 in Egypt, 40,000
in Lebanon and 10,000 in Turkey.
Between 9 and 10 per cent of these refugees, about 200,000 people, are members of non-Muslim minorities. 90 per cent of them are Christians, while the
remainder are either Yazidis or Mandeans, whom the majority Muslim population also refer to as Sabeans.3 The tide of refugees moving abroad could well lead
58
to the complete eradication of this religious community from its traditional homeland and, given the scattering of its members abroad, the end of its existence
there, too. That would mean the final demise of a religious and cultural community which has its origins in pre-Christian times. The Yazidis in Iraq also face
rigorous persecution. Their numbers in Syria, Jordan and Turkey are so small that
the organiser of our journey found it impossible to make contact with them.
Among the Christians the Chaldean Catholic Church, which is united with
the Roman Catholic Church, has the most members. The others belong to the
Syrian Catholic or Syriac Orthodox Church, the Assyrian Church (Nestorians),
the Roman Catholic Church, the Syrian Protestant Church or other churches
founded as the result of breakaways. Common to them all is their use of Aramaic not just for liturgical purposes but also as their everyday language, thus
enabling them to identify as an ethnic group. Christian Aramaic communities
exist both in Iraq and in other Middle East countries.
3. The situation of non-Muslim minorities in Iraq
The tide of Muslim refugees has been triggered by the general violence in Iraq.
It can be assumed that they will return to their home country and find protection there within their tribe or Islamic group once the situation has quietened
down. The non-Muslim minorities are in a very different position, however. They
are confronted by the ubiquitous violence resulting from the power struggle
between the Sunnis and the Shiites, the acts of terror committed by Al-Qaeda and
other militias backed from abroad (Iran), as well as the no less violent efforts made
by the occupying power to restore order. The statements made by the refugees
and other people we talked to indicated that their belief exposes them to systematic
persecution on the part of the majority Muslim population, which the government or quasi-governmental authorities either cannot prevent or are not interested in doing so. This persecution stems from a combination of a purge mania
rooted in religious fundamentalism, a craving for revenge and outright criminal
motifs. The concept of an Islamic fundamentalist state justifies the persecution
of all the non-Islamic sections of the population. Hence those groups which do
not belong to the ‘religions of the Book’ face especial persecution, because they
are regarded as godless infidels, of whom the country must be rid. These groups
include not only the Yazidis but also the Mandeans, even though the Arab designation of them as Sabeans (the Baptised) stems from the Koran and they have
traditionally been regarded as a religion of the Book to be respected by Islam.4
The justification for declaring the Christians fair game stems from an insinuated collaboration between the Christians and the Americans as the occupy-
59
ing power. Because the Americans are also Christians, it seems justifiable to make
the Iraqi Christians responsible for the war, too, and for the present conditions
in Iraq. This ideological justification thus casts a softer moral light on the criminal interest in sheer personal enrichment. This situation is not dissimilar to that
affecting the Jews and their persecution in Nazi Germany, which was not exclusively the product of pure anti-Semitism, being largely driven by greed. The
Christian minorities mostly belong to the prosperous middle classes. They are
business people, shop owners, doctors, teachers and academics in other professions. That they are somehow different and for that reason the object of hatred
became abundantly clear to us during our visits to various families. Everywhere
we went we met people who were neat, clean and meticulous about their
personal appearance. There was a marked difference between them and the
members of the majority society. Most of the Mandeans are members of the
middle classes, too. They have traditionally worked as jewellers, goldsmiths and
silversmiths as well as in other craft professions.
While the forms of persecution we heard about varied, they revealed
consistent patterns. An attack frequently begins with a threatening letter purporting to come from a fictitious Islamic religious court, but which is actually
anonymous. The persons to whom the letter is addressed are urged to convert
to Islam or leave the country. The act of conversion must not only be made credible by observance of Islamic rules on dress and style of beard. Proof of earnestness frequently also requires that the family leave its daughters in the hands of
their persecutors. A Christian family can only escape from this situation by
packing its suitcases and leaving. Another method consists of kidnapping a male
member of the family and extorting a large ransom, euphemistically described
as a jizya, the term used for the head tax traditionally imposed on the nonMuslim minorities. In some cases refugees said that, having made the payment,
they were told where they could find the corpse of the male member of their
family. In other cases an initial payment was followed by a demand for a
second payment. At the same time the business or home was ransacked. It is
customary in Iraq for large sums of money to be kept at home. As a result a
family’s entire wealth can fall into the hands of its persecutors, plunging it into
absolute poverty. Aggressive acts of this kind make it impossible for the nonMuslim majorities to come to terms with their predicament and find a modus
vivendi that would enable them to stay, albeit in constrained circumstances. The
refugees we talked to hailed either from Baghdad or from southern Iraq (Basra).
While the climate of violence and insecurity may apply across the board in
Iraq at present, the non-Muslim minorities are excluded from the government’s
efforts to secure peace and enforce law and order. For all the danger to which
60
they may be exposed, Muslims still enjoy the protection of their tribe. As long
as they move within its confines they are relatively safe. Non-Muslims, by
contrast, do not have such protection. They belong to none of the large and, in
some cases, very powerful Iraqi clans. Hence they are fair game for the majority
society in which they live. They are the neighbours who pose a threat.
It should be pointed out in this connection that some of the bishops we talked
to tended to trivialize the situation of their fellow Christians. There was no concealing their fear that the mass exodus of the Christians from the areas where
they have traditionally lived will not only destroy a social community, but also
eradicate an entire culture. There is every reason to fear that the departure of the
Chaldean Christians will mean the end of the language community of the
Arameans and of the ancient culture of the early Christian communities. The
same is equally true, if not more so, of the numerically much smaller group of
the Mandeans. However, the bishops also pointed out – or were forced to concede when questioned – that it is impossible to reconcile the desire to maintain
the group culture with the will of the individual believers to survive. The inner
turmoil and great sadness caused by this insoluble dilemma were readily apparent
on the faces of many of the religious leaders we talked to and left a deep impression on us.
4. Alternative refuge in the country
In German jurisprudence it is assumed that the members of Christian minorities living in central or southern Iraq, who suffer persecution for their beliefs,
have an alternative source of refuge in northern Iraq. We therefore repeatedly
raised this issue during our discussions. The initial reaction on the part of the
UNHCR representative in Ankara, Roland Schilling, was to laugh in amazement.
He said it was absurd to imagine that Christians could live peacefully and safeguard their existence in northern Iraq. He urged the German judges to go and
examine the situation on the ground themselves. Those who thought it too
dangerous could hardly recommend others to go and live there. There were
individual reports not only of an increase in the number of bomb attacks and
suicide bombings in northern Iraq, but also in the number of Muslim attacks
on Christians. It is certainly true that the Christians still living in central and
southern Iraq – or those who did so until recently – have roots going back many
generations in the Christian villages of northern Iraq. However, they cannot
simply go back, because they no longer possess any land there and the once intact
structures in the villages have long ceased to exist. It was also pointed out that
rents in northern Iraq are about two or three times as high as those Iraqi refugees
61
are obliged to pay in Syria. Moreover, it is impossible to find work there,
preference being given to Kurdish Muslims.
There is also widespread scepticism concerning the Nineveh Plain project,
which is intended to redeem the pledge contained in the Iraqi constitution that
a new settlement area should be designated for the Christians and the Yazidis
in which they can safely profess their belief and maintain their culture. An area
east of Mosul has been earmarked for this purpose. The Christians have no faith
in this project because the site is surrounded by Muslim areas, thus making it
harder to escape abroad and raising the spectre of a possible ghetto.
5. Safety in the country of first asylum
The situation facing Iraqi refugees in Syria, Jordan and Turkey as countries of
first asylum is much the same for both Muslims and non-Muslims. Toleration
by the state and society goes hand in hand with economic and social uncertainty
and an extensive lack of rights.
Until recently Iraqi citizens could enter Syria without a visa. Every day up
to 2,000 refugees crossed the border. On 1 October 2007 compulsory visas were
introduced. Valid for three months, they can only be issued and extended in the
Syrian diplomatic mission in Baghdad. One-year residence permits are issued for
families with children attending state schools. Since the refugees are afraid of
subjecting themselves to the hazards of life in Baghdad again, it is likely that many
of them will dispense with the issuing and extension of a visa and opt in future
to live illegally in Syria.
Refugees registered with UNHCR or already recognised as refugees cannot
be deported. However, only 10 per cent of refugees register. We did not fully understand the reasons for this. Possibly there is great distrust of UN agencies. My
impression was that the UNHCR office is not exactly bending over backwards
to reduce the entrance thresholds. Recognition is on a prima facie basis after applicants have been given a hearing.
The Syrian school system is open to Iraqi refugees. However, evidence is
required of school attendance to date, which many refugees cannot provide,
having left in great haste. There is no distinction between refugees and Syrian
citizens as regards access to the public health system.
Visas were required from the outset for entry into Jordan, but the authorities
were initially generous in issuing them. Many very prosperous refugees were given
permanent residence permits. Since July, entry visas have been valid for three
months only and cannot be extended. After the visa has expired, staying in the
country becomes illegal with fines of €1.50 per day being imposed on those in
62
contravention. Controls tend to be lax, however. There are no large-scale deportations and the fines are not rigorously imposed.
Jordan has reached an agreement with UNHCR whereby those who have a
letter of safe conduct from UNHCR are not deported. There is a provisional
certificate stating that the holder has registered with UNHCR and that a
definitive letter of safe conduct to be issued after a hearing, in which refugee
status is established on the basis of a prima facie examination, is pending. Here
again, though, the number of refugees registering (30,000) is comparatively small.
Of the 10,000-odd refugees in Turkey less than half (4,250) have registered
with UNHCR. To do so they have to travel to Ankara. Turkey is party to the
Geneva Refugee Convention, although it has reserved the right to restrict the
validity of the convention to refugees from Europe. Non-European refugees are
subject to a regulation issued in 1994 affording them temporary protection. This
is dependent upon them registering either with the police or UNHCR.
In all the countries we visited the refugees do not live in refugee camps, as
the Palestinians do in Lebanon, but in flats which they rent from local residents.
It is not unknown for Syrians or Jordanians to squeeze up and make room for
refugees, whose rent payments can considerably boost their income. Wherever
possible, Christians settle close to churches and Christian community centres.
In Damascus we saw entire districts occupied almost exclusively by refugees,
although here again the Christian refugees tend to group together in certain
neighbourhoods. A family of eight to ten spanning three generations frequently has to share two rooms, a kitchen and a toilet, for which they have to pay
around $200 in Syria. The refugees often come from more prosperous sections
of society and have arrived in the countries of first asylum with considerable savings. It can be assumed that this relatively comfortable situation will soon come
to an end when the resources have been depleted and no support is forthcoming from relatives in the West. In church communities we witnessed campaigns
for donations of food and clothing, indicating that many refugees depend on
outside help for their daily living. The ratio of local Chaldean families in
Damascus to Chaldean refugee families from Iraq is 120 to 7,000.
In Syria, Jordan and Turkey refugees are subject to a general ban on employment. If they nevertheless go out to work, they are paid well below the normal
wages and are frequently cheated of even this meagre reward by their employers.
Often the father is unemployed, leaving the women and children to work as home
helps or in low-grade jobs.
In summary, the refugees do not integrate into the societies of the asylum
countries. In their eyes the countries they are staying in are no more than
transit countries. They hope to be able to migrate on to the USA, Canada,
63
Australia, New Zealand or Europe. The prospects are not unreasonable for those
who have worked together with the US forces in Iraq and suffered persecution
as a result; the same applies to those who have relatives in the West. In Europe
only Sweden and Finland have so far admitted considerable numbers of Iraqi
refugees. The more hopes of legal onward migration diminish, the greater the
likelihood that illegal flows of refugees will be set in train, from which Europe,
in particular, will not be able to shield itself.
6. Onward migration
My impression is that the refugee problem in the Middle East, especially in Syria
and Jordan, has triggered a development with repercussions that are barely
perceptible at present. As time goes by, however, Europe will come up against
problems, solutions to which will be all the more improbable the longer we fail
to take heed of what is happening. Hence it appears to me that it is in Europe’s
interest not to turn a blind eye to the refugee disaster in Iraq and its neighbouring
countries, but to consider how the situation can be defused. I see the problems
heading our way as consisting primarily in a destabilisation of the political
situation in Syria and Jordan and an uncontrollable wave of illegal immigration
into Europe.
There are now 750,000 refugees living in Jordan, which has a population of
six million. That is about 13 per cent. In Syria there are more than 1.2 million
refugees. These huge numbers alone and the fact that integration is a non-starter
or is out of the question because of the limited resources available are sufficient
reason to fear increasing instability in the asylum countries. Instability in these
two countries could well mean that the essentially secular regimes in power there
could be swept away by a wave of radical Islamist violence of the kind already
witnessed in Iraq. Europe can have no interest in such a development.
The increasing pressure the refugees face and the dwindling opportunities
for legal onward migration will spark a wave of illegal migration which, for
geographical reasons, will initially pour into Europe.
Under these circumstances there is an urgent need for solidarity with the
countries of first asylum in their efforts to cope with the refugee problem. Fear
of making contact with the regimes of so-called ‘rogue states’ should not
constitute an obstacle in this respect. There can be no doubt that Syria, in particular, is a dictatorial police state. However, the example of Iraq illustrates
what Thomas Hobbes pointed out long ago: that a dictatorial regime is better
than a battle of all against all. Solidarity can consist of providing the countries
of first asylum with the financial means to look after and integrate the refugees,
64
thus shielding the local economy from collapse and avoiding social upheavals.
It can be assumed that the Muslim refugees will require help for only a limited
period of time, because they can be expected to return to Iraq once law and order
have been restored in the country.
As far as the non-Muslim refugees are concerned, the European states should
jointly give serious consideration to a system of quotas enabling them to emigrate to Europe. This option could be limited to those families not persecuted
because of their collaboration with the Americans, the USA being under a
greater obligation to take in families that have suffered for this reason. Moreover, great care should be continue to be taken to ensure that the Christian and
non-Christian communities, whose small numbers make them especially fragile,
should not be split up even further when abroad, because that would mean the
end of an ancient culture that is worth preserving. In the 1970s, Germany took
in around 30,000 refugees from Vietnam, most of whom have succeeded in
integrating in the meantime. A large number of Christian refugees from Iraq could
be expected to do likewise. These are people with a culture and set of values not
dissimilar to our own, people with a background in higher education, some of
whom have a certain wealth and who have shown in the past that they are
capable of adapting to a new and unfamiliar environment.
Notes
1 In Damascus we talked to the Chaldean Bishop, Antoine Audo, the Greek Catholic Archbishop, Isidor Battikha, the
Syriac Orthodox Patriarch, Zakka Iwas, two priests of the Assyrian Church (Nestorians), a sheikh of the
Sabeans/Mandeans and Ayman Gharaybe of the UNHCR office. Sisters of the Good Shepherd, who provide relief for
refugees in Damascus, enabled us to visit numerous refugees in small groups in their homes and to talk to them.
In Amman we talked to the head of Caritas, Wael Sulaiman, to Ra’ed Bahou, the regional director of the Pontifical
Mission Society, and to nuns from the Order of St. Francis, in whose house a large group of refugee families reported
on their plight and present situation. Other meetings with Christian refugees were held in the home of a Syriac
Orthodox priest, Al-Bana. Finally, we had meetings with a Chaldean Catholic priest, Raymond Mossalilli, and
Hanan Hamdan from the local UNHCR office.
In Ankara Father Felix Körner SJ reported on refugee work in the city. We also had talks with the head of the
International Organization for Migration (IOM), Maurizio Busatti, and with Camelia Suica, the official in the EU
delegation in Ankara responsible for the adaptation of Turkish refugee law to EU standards. In Istanbul the Chaldean
patriarchal vicar, Francois Yakan, who accompanied us throughout the journey, informed us of the situation of the
refugees there and of the work being done by KASDER, the refugee relief organisation founded by the Chaldean Church.
Here, too, we had an opportunity to visit refugees in their homes.
2 http://www.un.org/unrwa/publications/pdf/figures.pdf [12.10.2007]
3 The Mandeans/Sabeans draw their inspiration from John the Baptist, regarding Jesus as a false prophet. Since the
first century they have lived almost exclusively in Iraq.
4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandaeism [18.12.2008]
65
Authors
Edgar Auth
Editor, Frankfurter Rundschau, Frankfurt
Klaus Barwig
Academy expert, Migration Affairs Department, Academy of the Diocese of
Rottenburg-Stuttgart, Stuttgart
Jan Bittner
Adviser on foreign, security and European policy in the planning group of the
CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the German Bundestag, Berlin
Prof. Dr. Harald Dörig
Judge at the Revision Senate for Asylum Law of the German Federal Administrative Court
Iris Escherle
Senior civil servant, Department 422, Federal Office for Migration and Refugees,
Nuremberg
Ferdinand Georgen
Judge at the Wiesbaden Administrative Court, spokesman of the Hesse Regional
Association of New Judges
Stefan von Kempis
Deputy head of the German-language department of Radio Vatican, responsible for news and current affairs
Dr. Otmar Oehring
Head of the Human Rights Office at the Pontifical Mission Society missio,
Aachen
Dr. Dr. Paul Tiedemann
Judge at the Frankfurt am Main Administrative Court and Lecturer in Refugee
Law at the University of Gießen. He represents Germany at the Council of the
International Association of Refugee Law Judges.
66
67
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First published in: Frankfurter Rundschau, 22 October 2007
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aufgenommen – doch nicht alle fühlen sich dort sicher.
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Klaus Barwig: Flüchtlinge in der Sackgasse. Zur Situation von Christen, Yeziden und
Mandäern aus dem Irak
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Jan Bittner: Iraqi Refugees: The West Overlooks a Major Crisis
The article was published on 5 November 2007 on the Atlantic Community
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http://debatte.welt.de/kolumnen/81/atlantic+community/45512/iraqi+refugees+t
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Iraqi_Refugees%3A_Open_Western_Doors_to_the_Most_Vulnerable
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Harald Dörig: Die Flucht religiöser Minderheiten aus dem Irak und die Haltung Europas
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christlichen irakischen Flüchtlinge in den Nachbarländern.
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68
Current/Planned Publications
1
Human Rights. Religious Freedom in the People’s
Republic of China
2 Human Rights in the DR Congo: 1997 until the present
day. The predicament of the Churches
12 Human Rights in South Korea.
13 Human Rights in Sudan.
14 Human Rights in Nigeria.
3 Human Rights in Indonesia.
Violence and Religious Freedom
15 Human Rights in Rwanda.
4 Human Rights in East Timor
– The Difficult Road to Statehood
16 Human Rights in Myanmar/Burma.
The Church under military dictatorship
5 Human Rights in Turkey – Secularism
= Religious Freedom?
17 Religious Freedom in the Kingdom of Cambodia.
Order No. 600 254
6 Persecuted Christians? Documentation of an
International Conference Berlin 14/15 September 2001
7 Female Genital Mutilation – Evaluation of a Survey
Conducted among Staff Members of Catholic Church
Institutions in Africa
8 Female Genital Mutilation
A Report on the Present Situation in Sudan
in German/in English/in French (2002)
– Order No. 600 208
9 Human Rights in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Religious Freedom
10 Human Rights in Sri Lanka.
Church Endeavours for Peace and Human Dignity
11 Human Rights in Zimbabwe.
18 Human Rights in Laos
Order No. 600 257
19 Human Rights in Egypt
20 Turkey on the road to Europe – Religious Freedom?
21 Opportunities for Christian-Islamic co-operation
in upholding human rights and establishing civil societies
Conference in closed session 11/3/2002 – 14/3/2002, Berlin
Volume 1
22 Opportunities for Christian-Islamic co-operation
in upholding human rights and establishing civil societies
Conference in closed session 11/3/2002 – 14/3/2002, Berlin
Volume 2
23 Human rights in Liberia: A dream of freedom –
the efforts of the Catholic Church for justice and peace

Iraqi Refugees

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