IRAQ: IRAN STOPS HUNDREDS OF IRANIAN REFUGEES FROM RETURNING HOME WITH THEIR VEHICLES AND LIVESTOCK

Record ID: 275176

  • Title: IRAQ: IRAN STOPS HUNDREDS OF IRANIAN REFUGEES FROM RETURNING HOME WITH THEIR VEHICLES AND LIVESTOCK
  • Date: 24th May 2003
  • Summary: (U7) CHARANI BORDER, IRAQ (MAY 22, 2003) (REUTERS) 1. SLV IRANIAN WOMAN IN BLACK CHADOR HOLDING HER GOOSE FOLLOWED BY OTHERS WALKING THE NO-MANS-LAND TOWARDS IRANIAN BORDER POINT 0.08 2. SCU YOUNG MAN BIDDING FAREWELL TO HIS DEPARTING FAMILY WITH MANY WOMEN WEEPING (2 SHOTS) 0.18 3. SLV REFUGEES WITH LUGGAGE WAITING FOR PERMISSION TO CROSS
  • Embargoed: 8th June 2003 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: CHARANI BORDER, EASTERN IRAQ
  • Country: Iraq
  • Reuters ID: LVA7S4NAI0LIIHTAFP9LMFLVCZBP
  • Story Text: Iran has stopped hundreds of Iranian refugees from
    Iraq from returning home to Iran with their vehicles and
    livestock.

    Iran opened a remote border post on Thursday (May 22, 2003)
    to allow hundreds of stranded Iranian Arab refugees to return
    home from Iraq, but many refused as they were barred from
    bringing their vehicles and livestock.

    More than 500 Iranian Arabs have been camped for weeks at
    the desolate border crossing at Charani, living in makeshift
    huts made from crates, blankets and corrugated iron and
    waiting for permission to cross the frontier into Iran.

    Most of the refugees have lived in Iraq for more than two
    decades, since the start of the Iran-Iraq war which uprooted
    them from their homes. A voluntary repatriation scheme was
    launched last year after a deal between Iraq and Iran, but it
    was thrown into disarray by the U.S. and British invasion.

    Following the fall of Saddam Hussein, hundreds of Iranian
    Arab refugees were driven from their homes near the Iraqi city
    of Kut by armed gangs of Iraqis who said the land belonged to
    them. Many fled to the Charani border crossing, while others
    are living in an abandoned transit camp near Basra.

    The refugees, along with the United Nations refugee
    agency, UNHCR, have been seeking permission from the Iranian
    government to cross the border, which has been closed since
    the invasion.

    On Thursday the Iranians said refugees could cross but
    only if they left their vehicles and animals behind.

    The UNHCR estimates 23,000 Iranian refugees are in Iraq.

    Some belong to armed groups hostile to the Iranian government.

    But many want to return home, more than 4,500 registered
    last year for the voluntary repatriation scheme.

    UNHCR mission in Basra, said around 150 Iranian refugees
    crossed the border on Thursday. But hundreds remained at their
    makeshift camp.

    Women veiled in black hugged relatives and wept before
    walking across no-man's land to the Iranian border where armed
    guards were stationed behind coils of barbed wire. One old
    woman staggered towards the border carrying a live goose under
    her dress. Iranian guards told her she could not take it with
    her.

    The border post is in an arid wasteland on the frontier,
    surrounded by minefields left over from the Iraq-Iran war,
    which claimed up to a million lives in the 1980s. The refugees
    camped there say they are getting more and more desperate.


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