Syria Today | EU resettlement plan to benefit Iraqi refugees in Syria

EU resettlement plan to benefit Iraqi refugees in Syria

Iraqi refugees in Syria are expected to be the first to benefit from the European Commission’s proposal to increase the number of refugees resettled in Europe.

Under the new plan announced at the start of last month, there will be greater coordination between the countries of the European Union (EU), as well as financial incentives for countries to accept refugees for resettlement. Governments that take people from EU-designated priority areas will receive SYP 268,000 (EUR 4,000) per person from a special refugee fund. A special body will also be set up to identify groups of refugees that should be given resettlement priority.The plan follows on from the EU’s November 2008 pledge to take 10,000 of the most vulnerable refugees for resettlement.

Currently, only 10 EU member states accept refugees for resettlement on an annual basis, with considerable variation in the numbers they take. Other EU countries carry out resettlement on an ad-hoc basis and there is little coordination between member states.

Refugees taken in by the EU are uniformly lower than other non-European states, although the EU points out that large numbers of asylum seekers enter the bloc illegally.

Close to 66,000 refugees were resettled worldwide last year, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Of these, 4,378 refugees – 6.7 percent – were taken in by the EU. This compares to more than 60,000 refugees resettled in the United States and 10,000 in Canada.

“This is an example of the EU expressing shared responsibility and also about increasing the international standing of the EU,” a European Commission spokesperson said.

Aid agencies and Non-Governmental Organisations working with refugees have welcomed the initiative. “The UNHCR hopes it will result in additional resettlement places beyond the number currently provided by EU member states,” UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic said.

Syria currently hosts 1.2 million Iraqi refugees, according to the Syrian government, many of whom are waiting to be resettled. Palestinian-Iraqi refugees living in makeshift camps at Al-Tanf and Al-Hol are considered priority cases by the UNHCR, but countries may choose to apply their own criteria to select refugees for resettlement.

At the end of May 2009, only 11,500 of almost 30,000 Iraqi refugees submitted for resettlement had left Syria.

Last month, the first of 50 Iraqi refugees accepted by Belgium in May 2009 arrived in the country. The refugees had been living in Syria and Jordan, including 11 from the Al-Tanf camp.