Of the more than 4.5 million Iraqis who have fled their homes since the 2003 U.S. invasion, around 1.5 million have sought refuge in Syria.  Saida Zaynab, a Damascus neighborhood that absorbed as many as 350,000 Iraqis at one point, became a veritable Little Baghdad, with many stores and restaurants selling local Iraqi specialties.

On the whole, Syria has nimbly accommodated such a massive exodus, but not without substantial strains on social services and local economies. But the way in which Iraqi refugees have so successfully integrated into Syrian communities is exactly what makes it hard for the Syrian and Iraqi regimes— as well as a swath of international aid agencies— to tackle the myriad problems the refugees face. “It's the first time in the UN's history that there's been an urban crisis of such huge proportions,” said Kristel Younes of Refugees International. “They are people who are very difficult to ‘see'. They speak Arabic and look pretty similar [to Syrians]. It's almost a ghost population.”

But where a ghost population used to move seamlessly about densely packed neighborhoods like Saida, some are now starting to notice what looks more like ghost towns. For a variety of reasons, including hopes for sustainable, improved security in Baghdad and elsewhere, more and more Iraqis are returning home, leaving behind communities that had stretched to accommodate them and now appear sagging and deflated.  

At the pinnacle of Damascus’ refugee influx, prices had been rising dramatically. The Syrian government’s reservations about sanctioning foreign NGO’s had left UN agencies and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to bear the brunt of providing emergency medical care and various other services to Iraqis in need. The pressing demand for aid still persists, and Iraq’s finance minister recently pledged $15 million to Damascus for its support in assisting exiled Iraqis.  But at the same time, apartment prices are plummeting and stores and buses, once bustling, are now half empty.

The exact cause of the sudden change in refugee movement is uncertain. While many are encouraged by what they consider a marked and potentially lasting improvement in Iraq’s security landscape, others—ever wary of the ebb and flow by which it has been characterized—still harbor significant doubt about whether the present state can be maintained. Certainly, the Iraqi regime is making substantial efforts to bring its citizens back across the border. According to Displacement and Migration Minister Abdul Samad Sultan, about 4,000 Iraqi families that have returned home have received financial assistance in the sum of 1 million dinars (around $800). The Iraqi Embassy has organized free, secured convoys to take refugees safely back to Baghdad.

But, given the recent tightening of Syrian visa regulations that prevent all but a select few Iraqis to enter, the choice to return to Baghdad on a one-way ticket seems to represent a considerable vote of confidence, if not a leap of faith, toward the prospects of a safe, civil life there. This has led others to observe that Iraqis are perhaps being pushed out of Syria as much as they are being pulled back into Iraq. “Not everyone is returning voluntarily,” a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commission on Refugees said. “It’s a mixed picture. Some Iraqis report an improvement in security in Baghdad, while others fear their Syrian visas are running out.”  But with nearly 1,600 Iraqis leaving Syria daily for their homes, and similar trends reported from Jordan and Egypt, many are hoping that a new and sudden re-exodus might solidify Iraq’s present gains toward stability and security. If not, many might still prefer uncertainty at home to safety in exile.  As one Iraqi eager to return expressed to The Times, “Thank you Syria, but I am homesick.”


References:

http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10137834

http://www.unhcr.org/iraq.html

http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/article/detail/9679

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gmjgLcsuTEbtEC8bOMU7Bx1sxI3w

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article2910440.ece

http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&story

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