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Refugee footballers in Jordan score a goal for unity

News Stories, 7 July 2008

© UNHCR/Z.Ayyad
Some of the Iraq Unity players pose in Amman.

AMMAN, Jordan, July 7 (UNHCR) – Amman's Iraq Unity football club represents troubled Iraq's past and, hopefully, its future. While sectarianism tears their homeland apart, young Iraqi Shia and Sunni Muslims as well as Christians happily play alongside each other in the club's four teams.

They like to kid around and have a good laugh, but they have also proved themselves on the pitch, winning a silver medal at a tournament staged in South Korea last year by the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations and ranking second in the Jordanian capital's amateur football league.

Apart from winning silverware and bridging religious divisions, membership of the club also helps its players to escape from the harsh realities of displacement that they all share. It is the kind of activity encouraged by the UN refugee agency, which in May gave the club 4,500 Jordan dinars (US$6,350) to buy summer and winter playing strips and other equipment.

"This initiative helps to address two important elements: frustration amongst youth and the need for continued unity," said Imran Riza, UNHCR's representative in Jordan. "These recreational activities provide a source of escape from the overall anxieties of displacement."

Gathering three coaches and around 100 players aged from 12-25, this is a club built on a shared love of the beautiful game. Politics, sex and religion are taboo subjects. "We are only concerned with football," said midfielder Abdul.* "We are of different backgrounds, but we have no problems amongst one another," added the 17-year-old.

They are also bound by their shared hardships and experiences as people forced to flee their country because of violence and persecution. Many of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have sought shelter in Jordan are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet, while lots of young Iraqis have had their childhoods ruined and their educations disrupted.

UNHCR's support of Iraq Unity is in line with the agency's policy of promoting education and sports activities for all the world's refugee children. Many of the sports and recreational activities organized by UNHCR are accompanied by lessons in subjects such as English – that's the case with Iraq Unity.

A second language can provide the football players with an edge in both work and higher education opportunities. So they are having fun as well as learning. Purposeful activities such as sport can also help counter the psycho-social problems and trauma that affect much of the Iraqi refugee community in Jordan.

And this rubs off on other members of the community, many of whom rely on assistance from UNHCR. They turn out to watch their friends and relatives as they play in different leagues for different age groups. One team will soon be going on tour to North Africa.

Iraq Unity is an exemplar. It has developed camaraderie among Iraqis who might be fighting each other back home; it has built self-confidence among people who sorely need it; and it has instilled a sense of discipline. It also builds hope. "The team unites us; it is everything to us," said one proud Iraq Unity player.

* Name changed for protection reasons

By Dana Bajjali and Tamara Jafar in Amman, Jordan

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Crisis in Iraq: Displacement

UNHCR and its partners estimate that out of a total population of 26 million, some 1.9 million Iraqis are currently displaced internally and more than 2 million others have fled to nearby countries. While many people were displaced before 2003, increasing numbers of Iraqis are now fleeing escalating sectarian, ethnic and general violence. Since January 2006, UNHCR estimates that more than 800,000 Iraqis have been uprooted and that 40,000 to 50,000 continue to flee their homes every month. UNHCR anticipates there will be approximately 2.3 million internally displaced people within Iraq by the end of 2007. The refugee agency and its partners have provided emergency assistance, shelter and legal aid to displaced Iraqis where security has allowed.

In January 2007, UNHCR launched an initial appeal for US$60 million to fund its Iraq programme. Despite security issues for humanitarian workers inside the country, UNHCR and partners hope to continue helping up to 250,000 of the most vulnerable internally displaced Iraqis and their host communities

Posted on 12 June 2007

Crisis in Iraq: Displacement

Non-Iraqi Refugees in Jordan

After Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled in Iraq in 2003, groups of refugees who had lived in the country for many years tried to leave the chaos and lawlessness that soon ensued. Hundreds of people started fleeing to the border with Jordan, including Palestinians in Baghdad and Iranian Kurds from the Al Tash refugee camp in central Iraq.

Aside from a few Palestinians with family connections inside the neighbouring country, the refugees were refused entry and free movement in Jordan. Thousands were soon stranded in the no-man's land between Iraq and Jordan or at the desert camp of Ruweished, located 60 kilometres inside Jordan.

Since 2003, Palestinians, Iranian Kurds, Iranians, Sudanese and Somalis have been living there and suffering the scorching heat and freezing winters of the Jordanian desert. UNHCR and its partners have provided housing and assistance and tried to find solutions – the agency has helped resettle more than 1,000 people in third countries. At the beginning of 2007, a total of 119 people – mostly Palestinians – remained in Ruweished camp without any immediate solution in sight.

Posted on 20 February 2007

Non-Iraqi Refugees in Jordan

Iraqi Refugees in Jordan

The UN refugee agency has launched a US$60 million appeal to fund its work helping hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees and internally displaced people. The new appeal concludes that unremitting violence in Iraq will likely mean continued mass internal and external displacement affecting much of the surrounding region. The appeal notes that the current exodus is the largest long-term population movement in the Middle East since the displacement of Palestinians following the creation of Israel in 1948.

UNHCR has warned that the longer this conflict goes on, the more difficult it will become for the hundreds of thousands of displaced and the communities that are trying to help them – both inside and outside Iraq. Because the burden on host communities and governments in the region is enormous, it is essential that the international community support humanitarian efforts.

The US$60 million will cover UNHCR's protection and assistance programmes for Iraqi refugees in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Turkey, as well as non-Iraqi refugees and internally displaced people within Iraq itself.

Posted on 10 January 2007

Iraqi Refugees in Jordan

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