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Technorati1.4 Million Iraqis Push Syria to Edge
DAMASCUS, Syria - The flood of more than 1.4 million Iraqi refugees, with as many as 10,000 pouring over the border each week, is pushing Syria to the edge, most observers say.
"The situation is starting to scare a lot of people," said Samir Taqqi, a political analyst at the Orient Center for Studies, a Damascus think tank.
Public services are deteriorating. State-run hospitals, inundated by tens of thousands of Iraqis seeking free medical care, are short on staff and medical supplies. Unable to afford serving cafeteria food, many are asking patients to bring their own.
At public schools across Damascus, the capital, overwhelmed teachers are forced to work double shifts to accommodate Iraqis pushing class sizes to as high as 70 students. Meanwhile, rolling power blackouts blanket the city for up to five hours a day because the country's electrical grid can't meet increasing energy demands during one of the warmest summers on record. Blackouts in some suburbs reportedly last up to 12 hours.
"The Syrian economy doesn't have the resources to sustain current subsidies for food and energy," said Taqqi.
Real estate prices also have risen sharply in the past year, while the government is forking out millions of dollars in subsidies to keep the price of bread affordable after drought conditions this year reduced cereals by an estimated 3.5 million tons. And rumors that the government will soon ration water has caused many Damascus residents to stockpile tap water.
The population explosion - the International Monetary Fund said Iraqis now make up 8 percent of Syria's population - plus U.S. economic sanctions and declining oil exports are stretching finances dangerously thin.
"You have a situation where the state hasn't been able to increase tax collection, which is causing bigger budget deficits," said Andrew Tabler, editor in chief of Syria Today, Syria's first English-language magazine.
Some analysts fear the current conditions are ripe for social unrest.
"You have all the same elements of Iraq's civil war now living in Syria's capital," said a senior government adviser who asked to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to talk to the media.
Increasingly, Iraqis are drawing the ire of many Syrians, who complain that indigent Iraqi laborers are taking jobs for lower-than-average pay and increasing unemployment, which hovers around 20 percent.
Criminal activity and Iraq's sectarian tensions are starting to spill over, with a marked rise in prostitution, rumors of Iraqis kidnapping Iraqis for ransom, and Sunnis and Shiites settling old scores.
Syrians and Iraqis increasingly speak about a growing presence of Iraq's sectarian organizations, including followers of the firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has set up an office in a Damascus suburb.
Abu Afaq, 59, a Sunni refugee and former military officer during the rule of Saddam Hussein, says agents of al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, have intimidated and spied on him in the Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab, where hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees live.
"When I tried to go back to Baghdad, my cousin stopped me before I reached my old house because Sadr's men were looking for me," said Afaq, who asked to be called by a different name because he feared for his safety. "They knew I had left Syria, and if they caught me, would have killed me, for sure."
Syria and Jordan, which have taken in the bulk of the more than 2 million Iraqi refugees, have been clamoring for international assistance. Aid, however, has been modest and slow in coming.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has a budget of $67 million for the entire region, with $14 million earmarked for Syria this year. UNHCR, however, has increased its budget for its regional Iraq operation to $123 million.
The United States is reportedly devising a program to provide at least 7,000 Iraqis with American visas, but many remain skeptical.
"That number is a drop in the bucket," said Mtanios Habib, a former Syrian minister of petroleum. "America and the coalition created this problem, and they have done nothing to help."
At last month's meeting in Amman over Iraq refugees, the Jordanian government announced that the annual cost of hosting 700,000 Iraqi refugees approached $1 billion. Refugee inflows and a loss of subsidized oil from Iraq after the U.S. invasion caused inflation in Jordan to jump to 6.25 percent in 2006 from 1.6 percent in 2003, according to a study conducted by the Center for Strategic Studies, an Amman think tank.
Jordan also fears more acts of terrorism after the 2005 attacks against a wedding reception in Amman and two U.S. naval vessels in the southern port city of Aqaba. More than 60 people were killed - mostly at the wedding - causing the nation to tighten its border controls.
"Jordan awoke to the dangers of letting in large numbers of refugees after the wedding and Aqaba rocket attacks," said Paul Tate, a Jordan-based political analyst. "The official government line in Jordan is that they are still allowing Iraqis in, but it is widely suspected that they are not allowing in males between the ages of 18 and 40."
Syria, on the other hand, is the region's only country whose borders remain open. As a result, poor and uneducated refugees of all ages who can't afford the high cost of living in Jordan are streaming in.
"We have thousands of Iraqis who are getting in with fake passports and other false documents," said political analyst Taqqi, who added that many are also smuggled over the border. "Syria doesn't have the technology to monitor and inspect all of them to verify who they are."
Iraqi neighborhoods around Damascus have become so crowded that refugees are seeking shelter elsewhere, according to humanitarian relief agencies.
"We are starting to see migrations of Iraqis out of Damascus to cities located elsewhere," said Laurens Jolles, the UNHCR representative to Syria.
Jolles and other observers say this migration poses serious problems for relief efforts and for cities throughout Syria because they lack infrastructure to absorb large influxes of people.
"If this situation continues, and the government doesn't receive help, you could see drastic measures being taken soon," warned Jolles, indicating that authorities may soon clamp down.
"The time is coming when Syria will decide to deal much differently with refugees, both inside the country and with those wanting to come in," said Taqqi. "Almost all Syrians are opposed to having the Iraqis stay long-term - they don't want them to become the next Palestinians."
© 2007 Hearst Communications Inc.
16 Comments so far
Show AllThe United States is reportedly devising a program to provide at least 7,000 Iraqis with American visas, but many remain skeptical.
...and the right-wing pundits and warbloggers who cheered us into this mess are now campaigning to keep even that tiny number out of the country, on the grounds that they might be terrorists.
But hell, "morality" only has to do with sex these days, so why worry? /snark
Not only are both Iraqis and Syrians suffering, which is probably what BushCheneyRumsfled want, but this logically will also feed increasing resentment against the United States. As usual with Republican foreign policy, war is fed and profited from, while colonization and genocide through either 'legal' or covert wars accrue assets for corporations and Lebensraum for collaborators and sycophants. All of us Americans may have to pay the consequences if we don't stop the Evil Bush Family Machine and its mammon-pig 'Friends'. These situations feed more disgust with America, and thus further endanger our genuine National Homeland Security. Just like everyday life, respect for the rights and needs of others is mandatory for peace, and doing otherwise results in break-ins and hostility in the neighborhood.
Bush seems either oblivious to or ignorant of this, having lived a life disconnected from the everyday realities shared by most of us. And worst of all, his puerile arrogance is a grave danger to Americans as well as everyone else... he is so very much like Hitler. Why is he allowed to continue to rule? Why? And How?
Not only are both Iraqis and Syrians suffering, which is probably what BushCheneyRumsfled want, but this logically will also feed increasing resentment against the United States. As usual with Republican foreign policy, war is fed and profited from, while colonization and genocide through either 'legal' or covert wars accrue assets for corporations and Lebensraum for collaborators and sycophants. All of us Americans may have to pay the consequences if we don't stop the Evil Bush Family Machine and its mammon-pig 'Friends'. These situations feed more disgust with America, and thus further endanger our genuine National Homeland Security. Just like everyday life, respect for the rights and needs of others is mandatory for peace, and doing otherwise results in break-ins and hostility in the neighborhood.
Bush seems either oblivious to or ignorant of this, having lived a life disconnected from the everyday realities shared by most of us. And worst of all, his puerile arrogance is a grave danger to Americans as well as everyone else... he is so very much like Hitler. Why is he allowed to continue to rule? Why?
Here is one way to help refugees in Jordan and the internally displaced within Iraq. Please visit the Collateral Repair Project (CRP):
http://www.collateralrepairproject.org/menu.html
The CRP teams are not yet in place within Syria or other countries impacted by the flood of Iraqi refugees, but helping any refugee will help relieve at least a little of the pressure put on Syria.
This is a very powerful, personal way to help relieve the suffering that this war and occupation has caused. And you will feel better for being able to do something concrete to help our fellow human beings.
For a portrait of refugee life, you can visit Faiza al-Araji and her family at her website, "A Family in Baghdad," at
http://afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com/
Faiza, a member of the CRP team, now lives in Amman, Jordan.
With refugees streaming into Syria, Iran and Jordan and taxing their respective economies, why would they be suporting Iraq's civil war. It doesn't make any sense to anyone except our rouge leaders and the merchants of death who profit while I type.
"The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has a budget of $67 million for the entire region, with $14 million earmarked for Syria this year."
That is $10.oo per refugee per year. Can you eat for $10 per year? Every little bit counts, but that means Syria bears only 99.9% of the cost. This, in a country facing sanctions. What is needed is a $20 billion, not $14 million.
Thankfully the USA which has managed to find the best part of a trillion dollars to spend on war, can afford this. Let us collaborate with charity organisations and rustle up some aid.
This is getting real ugly, sanctions in a country where refugees are fleeing to. Talk about being between a rock and hard place. What a nightmare.
I agree if we and the rest of the world do not help these people they are going to die.
Raising money for the refugees in Syria and Jordan is a good charity. Even the right wingers could not oppose this. Also, such charity can be brought to the attention of the TV watchers then, as a side effect, either Bush will pledge money for aid or it will shame him (and the dems) further.
Stopping war is hard to do. In this regard we seem to be able to do no more than angst and bang our heads against the wall. But helping these refugees is charity. Nobody will accuse you of not supporting the troops, it is charity. It is real charity, because we would be helping those who really need help. But it will also cause people to notice that a problem exists and prompt them to ask why the government will not assist, given that they are the direct cause of the problem.
It is time for real Christians to show real Christianity.
When was the last time any country gave half decent care to 1 million refugees. This will cause massive social upheavals in Jordan and Syria. We must thank the Syrians and the Jordanians for their charity, and help them to shoulder the burdon, by providing aid urgently.
Let us organise aid for these refugees, by door nocking for donation, etc
Well, Bu$h the inferior is still focused on the oil and IF all the Iraq's leave he can have it.
There is about 4 million dead, displaced, injured out of about 20 million. That 's 4 million down and 16 million to be convinced that who owns the oil is not a primary concern.
SEE - PROGRESS
A MASSIVE refugee camp. Syria and Jordan are caring for after OUR 2 MILLION REFUGEES. I dont think the US has ever undertaken to feed so many people on an ongoing basis. Who can afford to feed them. Syria is not an oil rich country and neither is Jordan. WE MUST SEND AID or those people will starve.
We MUST send aid!!!
Fry in Hell Bush!
Gee, don't they like the new Iraqi Democracy? Based on what the W Admin tells us, nobody should want to leave Iraq to go anywhere else, except maybe to the USA. Which is probably going to happen anyway. That's an idea - instead of having democracy "over there", just bring the whole population "over here" and we can teach 'em what it means to have democracy that way. BTW, are we still not speaking to Syria? We may have to real soon...
And, if I understand correctly, anyone trying to help this situation, could, at least in theory, be in big trouble with the new spying law. Am I right?
Will the fleeing Iraqis ever be granted refugee status to live in the US? Not likely. Think of how they might tell the truth about the rampant "colateral damage" from the shock and awe. It would be a big blow to our beloved military industrial complex.
Our oil emporers want an unstable Middle East in order to justify continued military presence there. Privatized oil and huge reconstruction contracts are the prizes for the war profiteering corporations. As long as we keep giving power to Republicans and Democrats, this colonialism will continue.
Oh, oh... better get to work on our border fence.
Right MR Shrub, right... so much "progress" is being made in Iraq that MILLIONS of Iraqis have no choice but to live elsewhere.
Oh but watch the neo-cons do what they do best - blame the victims, it is really the Iraqis "fault" for not embracing "democracy", for starting the civil war, for being such ingrates, after all the U.S got rid of Hussein and these thankless Iraqis are just ruining the country.
The U.S only bombed the country for over a decade, sanctions imposed on the country killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, about a million have died so far during Bush's war for Iraqi "liberation", millions more are injured, malnourished, diseased, displaced, unemployed, their homes and communities destroyed and they continue to get bombed out of their homes. They must have been brainwashed by Al Qaeda or Iran or something, afterall, we are such benevolent people, why else would anyone hate Americans so much?