Geneva - Commercial truck drivers and businessmen are the
only people crossing into Syria since the imposition of tough new
visa requirements, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said Friday, while
more camps for the internally displaced were appearing within Iraq.
UNHCR spokesman in Geneva, Ron Redmond said of the visa
regulations: 'This does effectively close the last external refuge
for Iraqis.'
Syria imposed the measures claiming it was at breaking point. It
had received 1.4 million out of an estimated 2 million refugees that
have left Iraq.
Any Iraqi who now wished to enter Syria needed to apply in Baghdad
but only commercial, scientific, educational and transport visas were
available. Jordan had already clamped down.
UNHCR said the numbers had fallen dramatically from 1,500 to 2,000
people a day crossing into Syria to just a trickle.
Hundreds of Iraqis within Syria were now contacting UNHCR
concerned about their status as their three-month visas were due to
expire. Foreign Ministry officials had issued assurances that no
Iraqi refugee already living in the country would be forcibly
returned.
The UNHCR report on asylum seekers published in September
confirmed Iraqis were the largest nationality on the move, with
Sweden the foremost recipient country.
More than 19,000 had sought asylum in the main industrial
countries in the first half of 2007 compared with 22,200 for the
whole of 2006. There were signs Iraqis were heading elsewhere with
growing numbers turning up in Greece or were simply stranded.
'More and more Iraqis are going to spontaneous sites inside Iraq
where you see the sort of sectarian division that is taking place,
Sunni to Sunni, Shia to Shia,' said Redmond. 'We are seeing an
increasing number of sites for internally displaced people springing
up.'
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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