Iraqi refugees waiting to register their names with the UNHCR in Damascus
"The Lebanese government was tolerant of Iraqi refugees on its soil until the clashes erupted between Fatah al-Islam, a radical Islamist group, and the Lebanese army."When I told my mother about the growing Iraqi refugee population in Lebanon, she shook her head in disbelief. “This country cannot handle more foreigners,” she said. “We can’t even get along amongst ourselves.” But when I told her about the tragedies many of these refugees had been through, she was moved to tears. I was relieved. If anyone should be sympathetic to the plight of innocent victims of violence, it should be my mother. She arrived in Lebanon in 1948, her family forced to flee their home in Haifa. She was uprooted again in the 1980s, as she and my father took us to Canada to protect us from a childhood spent under the bombs, growing up in shelters like so many of my cousins did.
And now, Lebanon is once again on the verge of civil unrest. The fighting that erupted in the Nahr-el-Bared Palestinian camp outside Tripoli in May is an ominous reminder of the instability that grips the entire region – instability only made worse by the influx of millions Iraqis who have been forced to flee the violence targeted against them in their own country. The Lebanese government was tolerant of Iraqi refugees on its soil until the clashes erupted between Fatah al-Islam, a radical Islamist group, and the Lebanese army. Now, the government has started systematically deporting Iraqis.
Suspicion against foreigners, Iraqis in particular, was fueled by the fact that the leader of Fatah-el-Islam fought in Iraq alongside Al-Qaeda militants. Car bombs throughout Beirut further convinced the Lebanese, many as compassionate as my mother, that they could not take the risk of hosting more foreigners, albeit refugees.
The international community and the U.S. in particular, should see the situation in Lebanon as a warning of what could happen to Iraqi refugees throughout the Middle East should host countries decide their generosity knows limits.
For Ali, a Shia refugee from Iraq, deportation would be a death sentence. Ali told me that he, his terminally ill wife and their three children had arrived in Beirut in September 2006 and could not return to Iraq. His job as an officer in Kerbala was dangerous and the family fled because of repeated threats received at their home. “You help the occupiers,” the letters they received said. “You deserve to die.”
Ali is unemployed, and must fend for his ill wife, and their three children, none of whom can attend school. For the last couple of months, Ali has not been able to look for work, because the Lebanese army is running checkpoints throughout the country, in an attempt to find Islamist militants. Too often, it is people like Ali who are found, arrested and deported back to Iraq.
Like Ali, millions of Iraqi refugees in the Middle East fear deportation back to Iraq. For now, Syria and Jordan, hosts to nearly 2 million Iraqis, have not made it a policy to systematically deport Iraqis in country illegally. This could change.
As in Lebanon, a security incident or increasing tensions in Jordan or Syria could lead these countries to be less tolerant of Iraqis. So could the collapse of their education, healthcare and water systems. Millions of Iraqi civilians could be at risk of return to Iraq, a result that would be catastrophic, for humanitarian and political reasons.
Lebanon is also the perfect example of what can happen when a refugee population is left for decades with little assistance and hope. Palestinian camps are now lawless states within a state, where militias can form and recruit, and the civilian population is held hostage, caught between political games and the world’s indifference.
Of course, everybody, especially Iraqis, is hoping that efforts for a stable Iraq will bear fruit and that refugees will be able to go home, in safety and dignity. But governments in the Middle East, perhaps the most unstable region of the world, are worried about having to handle yet another protracted crisis. So are their people. Tensions are growing, sensitivities run high, and unless the international community reacts rapidly and generously, the first victims will be the Iraqi civilians who have been uprooted from their homes.
The U.S. must lead an international effort to immediately provide important and comprehensive bilateral and multilateral assistance to countries hosting Iraqis. Not only would it help in preserving these countries’ fragile systems, it would also significantly decrease security risks. After all, people who are fed, housed and educated are harder to influence and recruit. And increased assistance would reassure people like my mother: the Middle East will not have to bear the burden of another protracted crisis by itself.
In this part of the world, as illustrated by the events of Nahr-el-Bared, loyalties can and will be bought. In Lebanon, Iraqis have already started moving into Palestinian camps, for lack of better places to go. If we do not provide for them now, somebody else will. Is this a risk we are willing to take?
