WASHINGTON - 2 May 2008 - 220 words
Washington: Church urges US to help more refugees from Iraq
Testifying before Congress on behalf of
the US Catholic Bishops, Anastasia K Brown, director of Refugee
Programs at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), said
yesterday that the United States is "not doing everything
in its power" to avert a looming refugee crisis in the Middle
East.
Currently, there are an estimated two million Iraqi refugees,
mostly in Jordan and Syria, and two and a half million displaced
in Iraq.
Ms Brown stated that the United States "should and must"
do more to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi refugee population,
which is languishing in countries near to Iraq - mainly Jordan
and Syria. Calling for a commitment of more resources, Ms Brown
specifically pointed to the small number of Iraqi refugees resettled
in the United States. Only 4,000 Iraqi refugees have entered the
United States since the beginning of 2007, despite 24,000 vulnerable
cases being referred to the United States for resettlement by
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Ms.
Brown called the U.S. response to date "shockingly inadequate."
Ms Brown recalled earlier large-scale US resettlement efforts
to demonstrate that the United States is capable, given the political
will, of operating similar operations to avert humanitarian crises.
She reminded legislators of the resettlement of 135,000 Vietnamese
in one year at the end of the Vietnam War and the placement of
14,000 Kosovars in six months in 1999. Ms. Brown concluded that
the United States could resettle at least 60,000 Iraqis a year,
which would help relieve pressure on host countries and rescue
vulnerable refugee groups.
The testimony was presented to the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittees
on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight, and
the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia in joint hearing
that sought a Non-Government Organization (NGO) perspective on
Iraqi Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). A copy
is available upon request.
As Ms Brown was testifying, Migration and Refugee Services of
the USCCB, in conjunction with the International Migration Commission
(ICMC), released a detailed study of the needs of vulnerable Iraqi
refugees within Syria. The report examines the plight of Iraqi
refugees with special needs, such as unaccompanied children and
women heads-of-households. It also assesses the existing system
of response to these needs, and makes recommendations of the best
approaches to address their protection needs.
The report can be accessed at
http://www.usccb.org
Source: USCCB
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