Sudanese refugees arrive in Romania after incredible journey

News Stories, 17 December 2008

© Courtesy International Organization for Migration
The Sudanese refugees pass through immigration at Timisoara's airport.

TIMISOARA, Romania, December 17 (UNHCR) – After an incredible journey fraught with danger and hardship, a group of 97 Sudanese refugees from Darfur arrived in Romania Wednesday en route to a new life after years stuck in a desert camp in Iraq.

The Sudanese, most of whom fled Darfur in the late 1980s, arrived in the Romanian city of Timisoara after being flown by UNHCR from the Jordanian capital, Amman. They had earlier been taken by road from the makeshift K-70 camp in Iraq

Once in Romania, the group was transported in four buses to a new Emergency Transit Centre set up by the Romanian government, UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for people – like them – in urgent need of international protection.

"Our lives had been suspended while we were in Iraq," one of the refugees told a UNHCR staff member in Timisoara. "But this is a new beginning for us."

The refugees will stay in Timisoara until their applications for resettlement in other countries are processed. This first group will be followed by another 42 Sudanese refugees, who are expected to leave Iraq next month.

"The refugees are keen to get on with their lives. The children are playing football in the centre's courtyard," said Kahin Ismail, a UNHCR protection officer in Iraq, who accompanied them on the plane to Timisoara.

In Iraq, the refugees suffered abuse, blackmail, eviction and assault by militias following the 2003 downfall of the Saddam Hussein regime. A total of 17 Sudanese were killed between December 2004 and February 2005.

Because of this targeting, the refugees tried to flee Iraq but became stranded in the Al Anbar desert in the K-70 camp outside Al Rutbah town, some 75 km east of the Jordan-Iraq border. Conditions in the camp were described by UNHCR staff as "very harsh." The refugees lived in tents and endured desert sandstorms, soaring daytime temperatures and freezing weather at night.

"This is one of the most vulnerable groups of refugees in Iraq," UNHCR's Ismail said. There are some 42,000 refugees from various nationalities registered by UNHCR in Iraq.

Since the group departed Sudan, conditions in Darfur have deteriorated. The refugees said they did not want to go back to Darfur because they feared that they would end up being displaced.

The Emergency Transit Centre in Timisoara is the first of its kind in Europe. It can accommodate up to 200 people and will provide a temporary safe haven for individuals or groups who need to be evacuated immediately from life-threatening situations before being resettled to other countries.

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Internally Displaced in Chad

Destruction and Displacement in Darfur, Sudan

Iraq: On the Edge of Nowhere

Six years after the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, Iraq is still insecure and about 1.8 million people live in limbo – without a job or a place to call home.

Displaced In Northern Iraq

There are an estimated 4.2 million uprooted people in Iraq - more than in any other country in the world. The flow of people to neighbouring states and individual governorates is becoming too great a burden. The northern region of Iraq has become the destination of choice for those who have little money, but entry is restricted.

Learning Is Their Future

Almost a quarter-of-a-million Sudanese have fled violence in the Darfur region and found refuge across the border in eastern Chad. Schools in the UNHCR-run refugee camps provide an education for more than 50,000 children. Conditions are basic and equipment scarce, but the children feel education is their only hope for a brighter future.