100 Palestinian refugees from Iraq to be resettled in Brazil

Brazil has agreed to resettle an estimated 100 Palestinian refugees who were stranded in a camp near the Jordan-Iraq border, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees reported on 3 July.

Most of these Palestinians have been living in Ruwayshed camp, located in Jordan approximately 60 km from the Iraq border for the past four years, UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis said on Tuesday in a press conference in Geneva.

Pagonis added that these Palestinians are "the first group of refugees from outside Latin America to benefit from the 'solidarity resettlement programmes' which were proposed as one of the durable solutions for refugees in the 2004 Mexico Plan of Action."

This plan, "which was adopted by 20 Latin American countries, has so far only benefited refugees from the region – mainly Colombians," Pagonis said.

The transfer of the Palestinians to Brazil has been scheduled for mid-September 2007 and will be conducted in three movements of some 30 people each, Pagonis explained. The elderly and families with children are expected to leave first. Before departing, the whole group will be extensively briefed, culturally sensitized and given Portuguese language lessons by Brazilian UNHCR staff presently working in Jordan. Language and orientation classes will continue for up to 12 months after arrival in Brazil. The group will also be medically checked and receive yellow-fever vaccinations.

In the meantime, the UNHCR office in Brazil is preparing for the arrival of the Palestinians, by hiring bilingual (Arabic-Portuguese) staff for our partner organisations. The staff will be trained in Palestinian traditions and culture and will focus on ensuring the smooth integration of the Palestinians into Brazilian society.

An estimated 22 Palestinian families will be settled in São Paulo state, while 18 families will go to Rio Grande do Sul, in the south-east and southern regions of Brazil, Pagonis added. Unaccompanied older refugees will be settled in a home for the elderly where medical treatment is to be provided, she said.

All of the Palestinians will receive rented accommodation, furniture and material assistance for up to 24 months. Employment profiles are presently being analysed to ensure job opportunities for all, while a network of volunteers and local communities is being established to provide moral support during their integration.

All of the Palestinian children will initially be given the opportunity to attend classes in Portuguese, until the start of the next school year in March 2008, when they will be able to fully participate in school, the UNCHR said.

Pagonis also assured that the UNHCR has received "positive indications from two European countries" regarding the medical evacuation of at least 12 Palestinians – mostly young children – with serious medical problems from the Iraqi-Syria border and from Baghdad.

She added that more than 1,450 Palestinians from Iraq remain stranded along the Iraq-Syria border in deplorable conditions.

Palestinian refugees stranded in deadly Iraq; Brazil comes to the rescue

Wednesday July 04, 2007 11:58 by Vasilena Todorova - IMEMC News

After the UN refugee agency called for the immediate evacuation of at least a dozen seriously ill Palestinians -- mostly young children – who live in refugee makeshift camps in Baghdad and on the Iraqi side of the deserted border with Syria, Brazil offered to take them in, UN officials said yesterday.

"Without evacuation and life-saving medical help, they could die or suffer lifelong complications," said Ron Redmond, spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), about the Palestinian refugees stranded in war-ridden Iraq. "We currently have 12 cases in urgent need of medical evacuation, the youngest just 15 months old," he added.

Recently, a UNHCR team visited the isolated Al Waleed camp near the border with Syria and found that several young people among the 1,071 displaced Palestinians there were in serious need of specialized medical treatment. Among the ailing were a youth with a hole in his heart, two children with Hodgkin's disease, one youth about to lose his leg because of a vascular disease and a young man with severe diabetes who is losing his sight.

But Redmond said there were more cases in need of urgent attention.

"We have also identified a two-year-old with cerebral palsy who has very low immunity, is in urgent need of physical therapy and has stopped eating. Another child, a 13-year-old girl suffering from a spinal injury, will be permanently paralyzed from the neck down unless she gets treatment soon," he said, adding that the girl's mother died a few years ago, her father was murdered in January and her home was burned by militia.

Other urgent cases were discovered in Baghdad -- a 15-month-old boy in danger of paralysis from the waist down, and a 14-year-old boy who has had 13 operations but suffers from severe urinary and bladder problems.

Despite efforts of UNHCR and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to provide proper medical care, unsanitary conditions in the compounds, shortages of medical staff and mounting fears of attacks have led to the acutely deteriorating health of Palestinian refugees in camps inside and outside Baghdad.

The UN refugee agency said that Palestinians in Baghdad refuse to seek medical care because they are afraid for their safety. UNHCR also reported that in extreme cases some people, who refused to visit medical facilities because they feared attacks, died in their homes as a consequence.

There are about 1,450 Palestinians living in dire conditions at Al Waleed and Al Tanf camp, and up to 13,000 still living in Baghdad from an original population of 34,000 in 2003, according to the UN. Those remaining in Iraq have no access to another country, and no communities to flee to inside Iraq. In the meantime, they continue to be targeted.

Dire conditions are also found in Al Tanf camp where almost 400 displaced Palestinians live amidst rising summer temperatures and without hope for a solution.

"This is the hell that we have read about it in holy books. We are dying slowly and feel the world has forgotten us. How long are we going to stay in this desert?” asked one camp resident. "Is the world so small and unable to rescue 10,000 Palestinian refugees from the killing, torture and hell of Iraq and the prison of this camp?"

As in Al Waleed, camp residents are facing medical problems and shortages. One Palestinian woman here suffers from kidney problems and had to be medically evacuated to Syria two weeks ago to receive urgent treatment. She had to leave her two young daughters alone in the camp because she was not allowed to take them along.

Life in the camp appears to be particularly hard on women. "In addition to everything else that we have to do, including feeding our children, teaching them and above all holding up patiently so that life goes on, our husbands are so stressed out and quite often they vent their anger on the women," said another female refugee living at Al Tanf camp.

Earlier this year, UNHCR and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) set up five tented classrooms for the 122 children living in the camp and this has helped raise their morale. "The school was a great initiative but still our children have no future in this desert. They have no touch with the outside developed world," said one mother.

Yesterday the government of Brazil offered to resettle about 100 Palestinians living in Iraq starting in mid-September. About 22 Palestinian families are excepted to settle in Sao Paulo state and 18 families in Rio Grande do Sul, said UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis.

As part of the resettlement, Brazil plans to integrate the Palestinians into Brazilian society. Prior to departing, each group of roughly 30 people will be extensively briefed, culturally sensitized and offered Portuguese languages lessons by Brazilian UNCHR staff. All of the refugees will receive accommodations, furniture and material assistance for up to 24 months, with unaccompanied elderly refugees being settled in homes where medical treatment will be provided, according to UNHCR.

In recent years Brazil, Canada and New Zealand have been the only countries to offer resettlement to Palestinian refugees from Iraq, according to UNHCR.

Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.