RUWEISHED, Jordan, 26 March 2003 — The UN refugee agency chief in Jordan said yesterday that no Iraqis had yet arrived in the country, contrary to expectations, saying they could be prevented both by the war and Iraqi authorities. “No refugees have arrived in Jordan because of the ongoing violence and may have been prevented from coming out of Iraq,” Sten Bronee told reporters, adding that his organization “cannot do anything about the situation.”

However, 22 Arabs holding Iraqi travel documents were allowed to cross into Jordan late Monday after waiting for five days in the no man’s land between the countries, Bronee told AFP. Humanitarian sources said most of them were Palestinians with Iraqi laissez-passers and that among them were four women and seven children.

Aid workers said most members of the group, which included several children, carried Palestinian travel documents of Iraqi or Egyptian origin. Many Palestinians do not have passports but have travel documents issued by nearby Arab countries to which they fled after the creation of Israel.

Jordan, where Palestinians are a majority of the population, is sensitive about allowing any Palestinians into the country, fearing they could settle and prompt others to follow suit and disrupt a delicate political balance, analysts said.

Aid workers said the Palestinians had waited at the border for about four days after fleeing the war in Iraq. Several hundred other non-Iraqis have already been allowed into Jordan, from where they are swiftly sent to their home countries. But a feared influx of Iraqi refugees has not materialized.

“They (the Palestinians) were all let in last night. They are all in the TCN (third country nationals) camp run by the Jordanian Red Crescent Society,” an official from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told Reuters after visiting the reception camp in no man’s land.

“There is nobody in no man’s land now,” he said, adding that aid officials at the camp would interview the Palestinians to determine their status.

Palestinian officials said Palestinians with Iraqi travel documents could be turned back to Iraq. Palestinian Ambassador to Iraq Azzam Al-Ahmad told Reuters that 50,000 Palestinian refugees live in Iraq and have never been allowed to enter Jordan without special permits. Commercial and passenger traffic at the usually very busy Jordan-Iraqi border has plummeted since the US-led invasion of Iraq on Thursday.