Saturday, October 17, 2009
GENEVA (AP) — More than 30,000 Iraqis have moved to the United States under a resettlement program that began in 2007 while much smaller numbers have gone to other countries, the U.N. refugee agency said Friday.
The big United States intake, which began with the program in 2007, came after Washington had been heavily criticized for taking in too few Iraqi refugees.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has recommended to the participating countries the names of 82,500 Iraqis who should be moved, but so far only 33,117 have been able go to their new homelands, said spokesman Andrej Mahecic.
“Everyone is urgent,” said Mahecic, but he stressed that priority should be given to medical emergencies and to women and children at particular risk.
He said the refugees have been determined to be in need of international protection and that no other solution is possible.
The program started slowly in 2007, but “things are picking up,” said Mahecic.
One Shiite lawmaker in Baghdad questioned the U.N. figures, implying they had been inflated in order to make Iraq appear less stable than it really is.
“I believe there is an overstatement and a kind of exaggeration, and the number might include those who are originally in the States before 2003,” said Abbas al-Bayati, member of the security and defense committee in the Iraqi parliament.
He acknowledged that the people being resettled in the U.S. “believe as individuals that because they worked with the Americans they will be targeted.”
Violence in Iraq has decreased dramatically since the height of the insurgency in 2006 and 2007, although deadly attacks still occur. In one such attack Friday, a suicide bomber with an AK-47 opened fire on worshippers at a Sunni mosque in the northern city of Tal Afar, before detonating an explosives belt, killing 15 people.
Before the resettlement program started, the U.S. government came under heavy criticism from advocacy groups and some lawmakers — including the late Sen. Ted Kennedy — who accused it of failing to respond quickly enough to the Iraqi refugee crisis. Critics said the delay imperiled Iraqis who were targeted because they worked with American troops or diplomats.
The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.