EU to take in up to 10,000 Iraqi refugees (Roundup)

Nov 27, 2008, 15:31 GMT

Brussels - The European Union should permanently re- settle up to 10,000 Iraqi refugees currently living in camps in Syria and Jordan into Europe, EU interior ministers meeting in Brussels decided on Thursday.

The council of EU ministers 'invites member states to take in Iraqi refugees in a particularly vulnerable situation such as those with particular medical needs, trauma or torture victims, members of religious minorities or women on their own with family responsibilities,' a joint statement said.

'This has to be done on a voluntary basis and in the light of the reception capacities of member states and the overall effort already made in terms of taking in of refugees. ... The objective could be to take in up to around 10,000 refugees,' it said.

Germany will take in around quarter of that number, the country's Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said.

At the meeting, ministers debated a report from a group of EU experts who visited refugee camps in Syria and Jordan in early November, with an eye to assessing the refugees' needs.

The report concluded that most refugees would ultimately return home, but that a significant minority were in urgent need of re- settlement, either because of medical problems or because they belong to minorities who have been particularly targeted in Iraq's conflict.

'There is a clear need for resettlement' of Iraqi refugees from the two countries, and an 'increased engagement on the part of the EU countries on resettlement could send a positive signal to the governments of the hosting countries,' it said.

It pointed out that the EU's 27 member states have only taken in a tiny number of refugees - just over 1,000 - in the last two years.

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, says that 'there is a clear need for additional European quota,' the report said.

And the report highlighted the plight of Palestinian refugees who had originally settled in Iraq and have now been forced to flee to camps in the no-man's-land between Syria and Iraq.

Some 2,500 Palestinians are housed in the camps at al-Waleed, al- Hol and al-Tanf, and their situation is 'extremely bad, and is compounded by the hopelessness of their situation, given that they cannot return to Iraq and are not allowed to enter Syria,' it said.  

'These refugees are urgently in need of protection. As protection is not available in Syria, resettlement is the only option,' the report stressed.

The ministerial call now leaves it up to individual member states to decide how many refugees they take in, and what precise criteria they use to select those whom they will re-settle out of the some 1.5 million Iraqi refugees thought to be in Syria and Jordan.