No Refuge Here: Iraqis Flee, but Where?

Many fine journalists have by now covered the story of those Iraqis who trusted the United States, and whose simple requests for security within Iraq or sanctuary without have been answered with silence.

It is an important story, but one that needs to be viewed within a larger context—as one small part of what Refugee International calls the fastest growing refugee crisis in the world and the largest movement of people in the Middle East since the war of 1948 that led to the scattering of the Palestinian diaspora. Iraqi asylum seekers in countries that report those numbers to the UN last year outnumbered those from any other country of the world. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) more than two million Iraqis have fled their country since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. The vast majority of them now live in Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon.