Dahr Jamail (The Nation): The Iraqi Refugee Crisis

[Jack Rabbit]

From The Nation
Dated Monday April 23

The Iraqi Refugee Crisis
By Dahr Jamail

The war in Iraq has caused one of the most severe refugee crises in history, and no one seems to be paying attention.

Since the shock-and-awe invasion of Iraq began in March 2003, that country's explosive unraveling has never left the news or long been off the front page. Yet the fallout beyond its borders from the destruction, disintegration, and ethnic mayhem in Iraq has almost avoided notice. And yet with -- according to United Nations estimates -- approximately 50,000 Iraqis fleeing their country each month (and untold numbers of others being displaced internally), Iraq is producing one of the -- if not the -- most severe refugee crisis on the planet, a crisis without a name and without significant attention.

For the last two weeks, I've been in Syria, visiting refugee centers and camps, the offices and employees of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and poor neighborhoods in Damascus that are filling up with desperate, almost penniless Iraqi refugees, sometimes living 15 to a room. In statistical and human terms, these few days offered a small window into the magnitude of a catastrophe that is still unfolding and shows no sign of abating in any immediately imaginable future.

Read more at the link

[Blue_In_AK]

1. Dahr Jamail is a wonderful reporter.

He is from Anchorage and gets back here every now and then to give a talk. He had some very disturbing things to report when he was here a month or so ago.