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Refugees Magazine Issue 131: (Africa) – Iraq: What happened? What next?
The recent war did not produce a flood of refugees, but many longtime exiles may now go home
They were among the most anticipated crises in modern humanitarian history. Millions of refugees, were expected to flood across porous borders to escape the impending military onslaught. Appeals for funds were launched. Emergency supplies were stockpiled amid predictions of catastrophe. Teams were dispatched to mountain and desert outposts. The global media, which has become an integral part of all major crises, dispatched its own formidable legion of hundreds of reporters, photographers and cameramen to cover the unfolding dramas.
But first, on the borders of Afghanistan two years ago, and early this year with Iraq, the horizon remained largely empty and the anticipated flood tides of fleeing civilians were little more than a trickle. Aid officials waited. Journalists became frustrated that the action was passing them by.
So what happened?
Predicting refugee outflows is an inexact science at best. Planners review a situation, especially if war is likely, the history of the region, earlier civilian exoduses, reports from their own regional field offices and any government and military intelligence they can glean in reaching an assessment of how events may unfold and the assistance that will be needed.
SURPRISE, SURPRISE
It is a historical truism that the best laid military plans rarely survive the first few days of any war. The same is true in trying to plan humanitarian crises. Surprise is the only non-surprise in any emergency.
At the beginning of the Kosovo conflict in 1999, not even the most sophisticated government intelligence agencies predicted that Serbian forces would deliberately empty the region of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians at the point of a gun. In those circumstances, even if humanitarian organizations had anticipated the ethnic cleansing – which they did not – they would have been powerless to mobilize major resources in the face of big power scepticism.
This time, there were conflicting conclusions. There were many solid reasons to plan for a major civilian exodus from Iraq once American-led forces began their assault. Several million Iraqis had abandoned the country in previous decades. Following the first Gulf War in 1991, an estimated two million people fled from their homes. In anticipation of this 'medium case' scenario, UNHCR drew up plans to assist as many as 600,000 refugees. At the same time, however, senior spokesman Ron Redmond publicly cautioned that, depending on developments in the war itself, few if any refugees might try to leave.
In the event, of course, few did. The International Institute for Strategic Studies in London said the nonappearance of refugees was tied directly to the tactics used by the coalition forces: "It seems that the early allied military strategy of bypassing major cities, selective bombing of military targets and warnings to civilians to stay at home and off the main roads limited the number of civilians on the move."
Sten Bronee, UNHCR's Representative in Jordan said: "People had property and they didn't want to leave. Fatigue set in. The conflict was déjà vu for the Iraqis." And British journalist Jonathan Steele added: "People developed a nonchalance about the bombing. By the time water and power shortages began to hit, the fact that Saddam was already gone cancelled things out."
THE FUTURE
Now what?
In reviewing events, Ron Redmond said: "It was imperative that we prepared the necessary programmes based on unfolding events. We did that and were satisfied with our planning. We were not unhappy that hundreds of thousands of new refugees were not created, adding to the nearly 22 million people we are already trying to help around the world."
In the aftermath of the short, American-led war in Afghanistan, UNHCR switched plans from dealing with a potential exodus, to helping long exiled refugees go the other way, back into the country. More than two million people returned the first year and that repatriation is ongoing.
Though the international spotlight has been turned down somewhat on Iraq, the refugee agency is now putting some of the manpower, financial and stockpile resources already in place to similar uses in that country.
The situation inside Iraq remains uncertain. Fragile religious and ethnic tensions could yet spark a future civilian outflow, especially since the roads have become comparatively safe for civilian travel.
Stockpiled emergency items such as tents, stoves, cooking pots, blankets and plastic sheeting will remain in place for the time being and eventually will be used inside Iraq or elsewhere.
And there is now an ambitious new programme to help not the anticipated new refugees created by the latest war, but as many as 500,000 of an untold number of Iraqis who had fled their country in earlier years, but who may now wish to go home and restart their lives there.
The budget for preliminary repatriation and reintegration is $118 million over eight months, which would mean the agency working within the levels of the previous Iraq emergency budget of $154 million.
Several million Iraqis probably left during Saddam Hussein's rule. Of those, the
U.N. refugee agency estimated some 900,000 were asylum seekers, refugees or other civilians living in refugee-like situations. Preliminary estimates suggested around one half of this group may need help in going home.
From the above group, Iran hosts half of the 400,000 Iraqi refugees living in places as far flung as Sri Lanka, South Africa and Argentina, and around 165,000 people from this group may eventually return.
A further 183,000 refugees are solidly integrated in industrialized nations and a small number, perhaps 35,000, may opt to go back to their ancestral homeland.
Of the 84,000 Iraqis currently seeking asylum, primarily in developed nations, some 60,000, are expected to repatriate.
Of the 450,000 Iraqis living in 'refugeelike' situations, primarily in Jordan and Syria where they work illegally, as many as 240,000 may return.
EXPANSION
To oversee this mass return, UNHCR plans to expand its current Middle East network, mobilizing 250 mostly Iraqi staff to open 15 offices around the country and man six mobile monitoring teams.
All returns will be screened to ensure that they are 'voluntary' and that the Iraqis are not harried or ousted from their host countries. A series of benchmarks are being established "to provide for the physical, material and legal safety and well-being of the returnees," Redmond said.
" This includes an end to violence and insecurity and the establishment of operational law enforcement institutions," the spokesman added. "Material safety includes access to basic services, things like potable water, food and health services.
"Over the longer term, we need to see measures to ensure sustainable reintegration. Legal safety includes the redress of human rights violations, non-discrimination and unhindered access to justice."
The returnees, like the population at large, will face a series of other daunting practical difficulties, ranging from an estimated eight million land mines strewn across the northern part of the country, to a barely functioning infrastructure and the large-scale destruction of public property records, citizenship papers and other important documentation.
Two-thirds of returning refugees are expected to go back to urban areas in central and southern Iraq and the others to rural areas, primarily ethnic Kurds to Iraq's three northern provinces.
Other unfinished humanitarian business includes the future of some thousands of civilians displaced within Iraq itself, so-called internally displaced persons.
UNHCR's mandate does not directly cover IDPs, but since their experience and situations are often similar to refugees, UNHCR has often helped both groups as it did in the Balkans.
It may do the same again in Iraq if called upon to do so by the United Nations.
Source: Refugees Magazine Issue 131: "Africa At A Crossroads" (June 2003). Download the complete issue in pdf format: low-resolution (730Kb) here or high-resolution (1.8Mb) here
