11.03.2008 - Source: US Department of State

Harassment of Palestinians; exclusion from Iraqi citizenship ("Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2007") [ID 24034]

"Palestinians reportedly experienced arrest, detention, harassment, and abuse by police, by individuals pretending to be police, and by the general public. A citizenship law effective in March 2006 prevents Palestinians from obtaining citizenship or Jews who emigrated to other countries from reclaiming citizenship."

Document(s): Open document

01.10.2007 - Source: Amnesty International

Report on the situation of Palestinian refugees in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003 (historical background; descriptions of the serious human rights abuses; conditions in the camps near the Iraq/Syria border); Palestinians became more vulnerable because, unlike Iraqi Shi`a and Sunni communities, they do not have an armed group to protect them ("Iraq: human rights abuses against Palestinian refugees [MDE 14/030/2007]") [ID 21753]

Document(s): Open document

06.2007 - Source: Freedom House

Palestinians targets of harassment and discrimination by both police and the general public ("Freedom in the World 2007") [ID 20744]

"Palestinians were the targets of harassment and discrimination by both police and the general public throughout the year."

Document(s): Open document

25.01.2007 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

Baghdad: 30 Palestinians arrested by security forces on 16 January; although released shortly afterwards, UN is concerned that Palestinians have been systematically targeted and threatened by authorities and militias ("UN concerned for persecuted Palestinians") [ID 19556]

"However, despite their release, a group of up to 90 terrified Palestinian men, women and children fled Baghdad on Wednesday heading toward the Syrian border, where the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says more than 500 Palestinians have been stranded for months. [...] UNHCR said that around 15,000 Palestinians live in Baghdad as refugees, but face constant threats from death squads and are unable to move freely. The refugee agency said many of those in Baghdad who have tried to leave have been turned back by militia in the city."

Document(s): Open document

18.01.2007 - Source: ReliefWeb

More than 500 Palestinians killed or missing since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003 ("More than 500 Palestinians killed or missing in post-Saddam Iraq"), Autor: Agence France-Presse [ID 19818]

Document(s): Open document

17.12.2006 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

Palestinian refugees living in the country say there is increasing fear in their community after a recent attack on a predominantly Palestinian Baghdad neighbourhood left 9 people dead and several injured, including children ("Palestinian refugees fear for their lives after recent attack") [ID 18165]

Document(s): Open document

14.11.2006 - Source: ReliefWeb

Syria started refusing entry to Palestinians from Iraq; Palestinians particularly at risk of persecution in Iraq ("Syria: An urgent appeal for Palestinians fleeing Iraq"), Autor: InterAction [ID 19240]

"The situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate quickly. It has become so untenable that over 1.5 million Iraqis of all ethnic and religious backgrounds have fled to seek refuge in neighboring countries. Palestinians, who in an act of political solidarity were welcome during Saddam Hussein's rule, are particularly at risk.

With the exception of Syria, Arab countries have now closed their borders to Iraqi refugees. Despite Syria's policy of giving Iraqis safe haven, it has started refusing entry to Palestinians from Iraq. With an estimated 700,000 Iraqi refugees (and 2,000 to 3,000 more arriving every day) adding to the 450,000 Palestinian refugees already living in Syria, the country is quickly reaching its limits.

Palestinians in Iraq are perceived by many Iraqis to have been favored by the Saddam Hussein regime. As a result, they have been and continue to be major victims of the war. Iraqi Palestinians are recipients of a collective "fatwa" (or death sentence) issued by several militia or sectarian groups, and their ethnicity - displayed on all their identification papers - is tantamount to committing a capital crime. Many have been kidnapped, tortured and killed."

Document(s): Open document

13.11.2006 - Source: Refugees International

Palestinians in Iraq forced to flee persecution; with exception of Syria, Arab countries have closed their borders to Iraqi refugees ("An Urgent Appeal for Palestinians Fleeing Iraq") [ID 18044]

Document(s): Open document

24.08.2004 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

Baghdad: Palestinian refugees find temporary accommodation ("original document") [ID 10294]

Document(s): original document

21.06.2004 - Source: Integrated Regional Information Network

Baghdad: Report about Palestinian refugees ("original document") [ID 10295]

"They may be the world's longest-suffering refugees, but the Palestinian families sitting in the sweltering heat of the dusty football field at Haifa Sports Club in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Sunday had no idea that it was World Refugee Day.

"I hope this occasion of World Refugee Day can serve as a bridge for us to help us go home," Huda Naif Sahaa, 43, told IRIN.
"I've never heard of this World Refugee Day, but I want to know more about it if it helps us."

Some 35 families are still living in tents at the sports club. Already, 140 families have been relocated, according to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The refugee agency is assisting 450 Palestinian families in Baghdad by subsidising rents, providing medical care and other relief items.

In 2003, UNHCR registered some 23,000 Palestinians in Baghdad but the total number in the Iraqi capital is estimated to be around 30,000.

But those remaining at the club say conditions are unbearable in the stifling summer heat. "It's like hell to live here," Sameer Mohammed, 24, told IRIN as he stroked his little boy Ahmed's head. "My wife has got typhoid, we think from the water, so she's in the hospital now."

Under former President Saddam Hussein, Palestinian refugees in Iraq received special housing privileges, paying cheap rent that landlords raised when the regime fell in April 2003. That forced many of the families to leave their previous homes. The former government only provided enough housing for about 12 percent of the estimated 35,000 Palestinians in Iraq anyway, according to statistics supplied by Anwar Sheikh, a refugee who acts as an administrator at Haifa camp.

The camp was set up almost a year ago in a sports complex previously used by the refugees when they lived in nearby apartment buildings before the rising rents forced them out.

"We are not even registered in Iraq, but we would like to go home," Sheikh told IRIN. "Israel should allow refugees to come home." Ask anyone living in the camp and they tell you the same thing.

Munder Amed Abdul Saif, also living at the sports club, told IRIN he still considered himself a refugee, even though he had spent his whole life in Iraq. "I must move to my family's birthplace," Saif said, smiling. "It is not acceptable to live here. We must be allowed to return."

UNHCR started a registration programme for refugees to get a better sense of their profile to better plan assistance, but it has been a slow process due to a scaling down of operations following security concerns, Sheikh said. Under Saddam Hussein, the refugees received identity documents but not passports, he added.

"To date, more than 23,000 people have been registered but the documentation, which is done through UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, was not finished before security deteriorated," spokeswoman for UNHCR's Iraq operations, Astrid Van Genderen Stort, told IRIN from the Jordanian capital, Amman.

"If we have to stay outside our native country for another 50 years, we demand that all forces in the world, including the United Nations, recognise our humanitarian rights," Sheikh said. "We suffer a lot. We're just asking for the world to understand us."

Refugees say government authorities are dealing with their case at a slow pace. "Our file is being moved to the Ministry of Migration and Displacement, so we met the minister to ask how he could help us," Sheikh said. "He said he would take care of us, but nothing has happened." Officials at the ministry said they are waiting for money to be dispatched to help subsidise rents.

Elsewhere in the region, 170 Palestinians who fled Iraq last year have now left a no man's land site and the adjacent al-Ruweished refugee camp on the Jordanian border and returned to Baghdad. The refugees said they had given up hope of finding a new home in the Middle East and preferred to return to Baghdad. UNHCR is providing all the returnees with transport assistance and various relief items.

Meanwhile, although refugee returns are continuing to Iraq, the UN refugee agency is not encouraging them, but instead facilitating convoys, in cooperation with the Iraqi authorities, for those who wish to go home. In June more than 350 Iraqi refugees returned in two separate convoys from Khuzestan and Fars provinces in Iran to Basra Governorate in southern Iraq, bringing the total number of returnees to some 11,500 with most coming from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.

UNHCR is planning to provide further support for the reintegration of returning refugees and displaced Iraqis in the three northern governorates of Arbil, Ninewa and Dahuk, and for Turkish refugees at Mahmour camp, near Arbil, and Syrian refugees settled in Baghdad, a UNHCR statement said."

Document(s): original document

13.08.2003 - Source: UK Home Office

More than 1400 Palestinian refugees evicted or forced to leave their homes ("original document") [ID 10297]

"More than 1400 Palestinian refugees are living in what is quickly becoming a tent city in west Baghdad, having been evicted from their homes. The Palestinians, who sought sanctuary in Iraq under Saddam, were provided with free government housing or accommodation rented cheaply from Iraqi landlords at Saddam's instruction. Saddam's generosity was politically motivated but many Iraqis resented their leader's patronage and since Saddam's fall many Palestinians have been evicted or forced to leave because of massive rent increases."

Document(s): original document