UMM QASR, 17 August 2003 — A second group of 250 Iraqi refugees returned home yesterday after 12 years living in a refugee camp in northern Saudi Arabia, an AFP journalist reported.
The refugees, who left the Rafha refugee camp, arrived at Iraq’s port of Umm Qasr aboard five buses at 9:30 a.m. (0530 GMT), where they underwent administrative procedures.
One hundred and sixty of them are to return to Nasiriyah, 375 kilometers southeast of Baghdad, while the remaining 90 are to return to Samawa 170 kilometers southeast of the capital, UN High Commissioner for Refugees regional coordinator Femih Bulbul said.
The emotional return was matched by feelings of uncertainty as many of the refugees do not have homes to return to and left the Rafha camp carrying very little luggage.
Tahsin Kadom, 36, is to return to Nasiriyah with his parents. They are survivors of the 1991 Shiite Muslim uprising against Saddam Hussein’s regime that was brutally suppressed.
“After our departure, they burned our house and our furniture. After 12 years, I am returning home and I have nowhere to go,” he said.
A first group of 244 refugees from the Rafha camp were brought home on July 30. The UNHCR expects more than 3,600 of the remaining 5,200 refugees in Rafha to be repatriated by year’s end, but is not encouraging massive returns this year due to the continued instability and insecurity in Iraq.
