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- Omar Ahmed rarely emerges from his
rundown Baghdad housing project. When he does, he leaves behind the
Iraqi-issued ID card that marks him as a Palestinian and switches to the
Iraqi dialect of Arabic at police checkpoints.
The 23-year-old keeps a low profile because of repeated attacks and
harassment of Palestinians, still resented by many Iraqis for what was
perceived as their privileged status under Saddam Hussein. Ahmed‘s
father was gunned down in a Baghdad street in 2005, one of an estimated
300 Palestinians killed in sectarian attacks since the fall of Saddam in
2003.
In recent months, street violence has dropped sharply across the
country.
But the Palestinians, who number about 11,000 and mostly live in
Baghdad, remain one of the most vulnerable groups, said Daniel Endres,
the envoy of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Iraq.
They have no political clout and almost nowhere to go, with just a few
countries willing to offer asylum to small groups — a hard lesson
learned by some 3,000 Palestinians who remain stranded in U.N. tent
camps on the Iraqi-Syrian border after fleeing homes in Iraq.
The doors are even mostly closed to the Palestinian territories in the
West Bank and Gaza. Israel controls the borders, and rarely grants
residency to Palestinian exiles.
In recent days, Iraq‘s Shiite-led government has taken first steps to
reach out to the community, which settled in Iraq after the 1948 Mideast
war over Israel‘s creation and grew to 35,000 before the U.S.-led
invasion in 2003.
Starting next month, Palestinians will get new ID cards, replacing those
from the Saddam era.
The new cards state that bearers are to be treated like Iraqi citizens,
according to a Palestinian diplomat in Baghdad, Dalil Qassous.
Distributed with U.N. backing, the cards seek to reduce harassment at
checkpoints and will make Palestinians eligible for some welfare
payments.
"Even though Iraq is in a difficult situation, we will give the
Palestinians the utmost care," said government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh.
But many Iraqis still resent the Palestinians, who are Sunnis, for what
they believe were unfair privileges granted to them by Saddam, including
housing subsidies and draft exemptions.
And many Palestinians remain suspicious of Iraqis. "I was born in Iraq,
yet I am afraid of walking in the Iraqi capital," said Ahmed, who lives
in Baghdad‘s largest Palestinian neighborhood, a complex of 16 apartment
blocks surrounded by Shiite areas in the Baladiyat district.
After Saddam‘s ouster, the compound in Baladiyat and other Palestinian
areas were repeatedly attacked by Shiite gunmen and security forces,
particularly after the February 2006 bombing of an important Shiite
shrine blamed on Sunni militants.
Palestinians in Baladiyat say Iraqi troops would drive into
their neighborhood and randomly fire at apartments. The compound also
came under repeated mortar attack. In response, thousands fled, Qassous
said. The area of four rows of apartment blocks, book-ended by two
streets of mostly closed shops, still has a strong Palestinian flavor.
"Long live our beloved Palestine," reads graffiti on a wall dotted by
bullet holes. There‘s a Haifa internet cafe, a Jerusalem restaurant and
a clinic run by the Palestinian Red Crescent.
A Palestinian nurse at the clinic, Lousiana Amir, said fear keeps her
shuttling just between home and work, and that she stays in touch with
Iraqi friends by phone. Her husband has been missing since being seized
in a police raid in 2005.
Amir, 25, said she would stay in Baghdad even if offered asylum
elsewhere.
"I feel it is my homeland," she said.
Others want to leave, but are stuck since no country has been willing to
absorb large numbers of Palestinian refugees.
Neighboring Syria and Jordan have closed their border to the
Palestinians. They took in Palestinian refugees after the 1948 and 1967
Mideast wars, but are now buckling under the burden of hundreds of
thousands of displaced Iraqis.
Palestinians who were too afraid to stay in Baghdad fled to the
Iraqi-Syrian border where the U.N. runs three tent camps in the desert.
Endres, the refugee envoy, said the U.N. is trying to resettle everyone
who wants to leave, particular those stuck in the camps. But it‘s been
slow going with only a few countries, among them Iceland, Sweden, Brazil
and Chile, agreeing to take a few hundred.
"It‘s been very frustrating," said Endres. If new homes are not found,
refugees could be moved to Sudan‘s capital of Khartoum for several
years, as a way station.
In any case, it‘s unlikely the largest camp, al-Walid with some 1,500
people, will be emptied out before next year, Endres said. Instead, the
U.N. this week leveled ground for the camp to be rebuild because sewage
puddles and garbage piles turned it into a health hazard.
Food and water are trucked in from four hours away. A generator provides
electricity for 10 hours a day, and the refugees run a clinic and a
school attended by more than 400 children. With security improved, some
camp residents have made brief trips back to Baghdad.
In the Tanaf camp, a few miles away on the Syrian side of the border,
Mohammed al-Boukhari is preparing to leave for Sweden as part of a group
of about 160 refugees.
The 45-year-old, who worked as a fashion designer in Baghdad, spent more
than two years in the camp, saying he used up almost all of his savings
of $6,000.
The father of two said he feels abandoned by Palestinian leaders in the
West Bank, and largely blames them for his harsh life in the desert.
"It‘s a crime committed against us by the Palestinian Authority," he
said in a telephone interview.
Azzam al-Ahmed, a former Palestinian deputy prime minister and longtime
PLO envoy to Baghdad, said his government is trying to help those
stranded in camps, but would like the others to remain in Iraq. Al-Ahmed
and other officials played down the previous attacks on Palestinians,
suggesting they were part of the general chaos.
"Once this problem is solved, they would be safe like other Iraqis," he
said.
But Omar Ahmed, the young Baghdad resident, would leave if given a
chance. "In this country, we have no hope and no future," he said.
Associated Press Writers Mohammed Daraghmeh and Dalia Nammari in
Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.
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