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“Hundreds of Thousands” Returning Home to Iraq
Iraqis are sending an irrefutable message to the world: it is safe enough to return home.
Better security sees Iraqi refugees flood home
Iraqi refugees are returning home in dramatic numbers, concluding that security in Baghdad has been transformed. Thousands have left their refuge in Syria in recent months, according to some estimates.
The Iraqi Embassy is organising a secure mass convoy from Damascus to Baghdad on Monday for refugees who want to drive back. Embassy notices went up around the Syrian capital yesterday, offering free bus and train rides home.Saida Zaynab, the Damascus neighbourhoods once dominated by many of the 1.5 million Iraqi refugees, is almost deserted. Apartment prices are plummeting and once-crowded shops and buses are half empty.
The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) was scrambling to assess the transformation last night. An interim report is expected today. “There is a large movement of people going back to Iraq. We are doing rapid research on this,” a spokesman said.
Syria has absorbed the lion’s share of Iraqi refugees since the US-led invasion and subsequent insurgency, with the rest going to Jordan, Egypt and other countries around the region. They, too, report a growing number of returnees.
Hussein Ali Saleh, the director of the National Theatre in Baghdad, who is staging Iraqi plays for refugees in Damascus, said that his audience was disappearing. A month ago the al-Najum theatre near the Syrian central bank building was filled with 400 Iraqis every night. Now barely 50 turn up.
“In the last month, 60 per cent of the Iraqis I know have returned,” he said. “The situation has been changed completely. They all want to go back. Even my own family back in Baghdad is telling me the situation is much better.”