DAMASCUS, 11 May 2006 — Some 43 Iraqi Palestinians crossed the Iraq-Syria border at the Tanaf crossing yesterday to join 244 Palestinians who arrived in Syria a day earlier after most of them were stranded for weeks in a desert border area because Jordan refused to admit them. A representative of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees received them at the Tanaf crossing, some 300 kilometers northeast of Damascus. The new batch, which includes 14 children and 11 women, would head to Al-Hol camp in Hasaka province in northeast Syria.
The refugees were fleeing violence and instability in Iraq and entered Syria after a two-month wait for many of them at the Iraqi-Jordanian border. Nine busloads of refugees arrived Tuesday in Syria through the Tanaf crossing under the auspices of the United Nations Refugees and Work Agency and the UNHCR.
Meanwhile, Syria has agreed to dismantle military positions and sand berms erected several kilometers inside Lebanese territory, the head of a municipality in the region told AFP yesterday. “They have agreed to start on Monday, May 15, to remove any breach, whether it be a military position or sand berms,” Bassel Hujairi, head of the municipality of Aarsal. Hujairi said the agreement was reached on Tuesday in the Syrian resort town of Bludan, northeast of Damascus.
