August 15, 2007
AP
IRAQ-JORDAN BORDER: In the barren, wind-swept plain between Jordan and Iraq, nearly 200 Iranian Kurds struggle to survive with little shelter and international help, holding out hope of resettlement in the West. The UN relief agency has told the Kurds- half of them children- that their only option is to move to Kurdish-controlled parts of Iraq. So far the Kurds have refused, remaining in this barren moonscape under a broiling sun in summer and bone-numbing cold in winter. "We are refugees, but we are depri
ved of all refugee rights," said Ismail Karimi. "Aren't we human? Aren't our children human?
Their plight began in January 2005 when hundreds of Iranian Kurds left a refugee camp near Ramadi after attacks by Sunni insurgents. They had lived in the camp since fleeing Iran soon after the 1979 Islamic Revolution because of their opposition to the new regime. The Kurds hoped to seek refuge in Jordan and eventually reunite with relatives in Europe and North America. But the Jordanians refused to allow them to enter the country. And returning to the Ramadi area was too dangerous as violence in the are
a raged out of control. More than 650 of the Kurds were eventually allowed to join families abroad. But 194 of them remain here, unable to qualify for resettlement because their relatives abroad are not from their nuclear families.
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