BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities in Baghdad and the administration in the semi-autonomous northern Iraqi Kurdish region have been arbitrarily detaining and deporting Syrian refugees to their country, a leading international rights group said Thursday.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said it has documented cases in which Iraqi authorities deported Syrians even though they had legal residency or were registered with the UN refugee agency.
The Syrians reported being arrested in raids at their workplace or on the streets, and, in two cases, at residency offices while trying to renew their permits.
According to UNHCR, Iraq hosts at least 260,000 Syrian refugees, with about 90 percent of them living in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. About 60 percent live in urban areas, while the rest are in refugee camps.
Human Rights Watch spoke to seven Syrians in Irbil and Baghdad between April 19 and April 26 who were being deported — including four at the airport in Irbil waiting to be put on a flight, the statement said.
Sarah Sanbar, Iraq researcher with HRW, said the watchdog was unable to determine the total number of Syrians deported. The group said the deportations have left Syrians in Iraq living in fear.
“By forcibly returning asylum seekers to Syria, Iraq is knowingly placing them in harm’s way,” Sanbar said.
An Iraqi government spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.
Iraqi authorities have also made it increasingly difficult for Syrians to stay legally in the country.
The Iraqi Kurdish regional government in the north has — at Baghdad’s request — suspended visa entry for Syrian citizens as part of broader efforts to regulate foreign labor in Iraq, restricting the Syrians’ ability to enter the Kurdish region for work or refuge.
Many companies in Iraq employ Syrian workers without legally registering them, making them work long hours for low pay.
New rules in the Iraqi Kurdish region require companies to register Syrian workers and pay social security contributions for them. However, some companies make the employees pay half of the social security fees from their salaries.
A Syrian worker in the Kurdish region told the AP that on-arrival fees for a one-month visa for Syrians used to cost $150. Those visas could be extended for up to a year. She spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing she could be deported.
Now, Syrians must be registered with a social security number showing their employer pays taxes on them, he said, otherwise they cannot renew their visas. In Baghdad, a one-year work visa that comes with a social security number costs $2,000.
Host countries that have sheltered Syrian refugees have increasingly pushed for their return home, where the country’s war, now in its 14th year, is mostly frozen along the former front lines. The United Nations and rights groups say Syria remains unsafe for returns.
Human Rights Watch said that in July 2023, returnees from Iraq were reportedly tortured in Syrian military intelligence custody and conscripted into military service.
A leading human rights group calls on Iraq to halt deportations of Syrian refugees
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A leading human rights group calls on Iraq to halt deportations of Syrian refugees
- Human Rights Watch said it has documented cases in which Iraqi authorities deported Syrians even though they had legal residency or were registered with the UN refugee agency
- Sarah Sanbar, Iraq researcher with HRW, said the watchdog was unable to determine the total number of Syrians deported
3 students killed in school wall collapse in Tunisia
- According to videos shared on social media, the incident sparked public anger, with local residents staging protests shortly after the wall collapsed
TUNIS: A wall collapse at a school in Tunisia killed three high-school students and seriously injured two others on Monday, the civil defense rescue agency said.
“The collapse of a dilapidated wall today led to the death of three students, aged between 18 and 19,” in Tunisia’s central Sidi Bouzid, said civil defense spokesperson Moez Triaa.
The two injured students were taken to hospital, he said, without providing further details.
According to videos shared on social media, the incident sparked public anger, with local residents staging protests shortly after the wall collapsed.
Tunisia’s UGTT labor union federation called for a nation-wide school strike to protest what it said was “the authorities’ failure to find real and serious solutions to save public schools.”
In a statement, the UGTT blamed the “painful tragedy” on official negligence, accusing the government of abandoning the basic maintenance of school facilities.
Tunisians in interior regions have long deplored socio-economic woes and lack of infrastructure.
Iraq sandstorm leaves 1,500 people with respiratory problems
NAJAF: Around 1,500 people were sent to hospitals with respiratory problems on Monday as a sandstorm hit central and southern Iraq, health officials said.
Hospitals in Muthanna province in southern Iraq received at least “700 cases of suffocation,” local health official Mazen Al-Egeili told AFP. More than 250 people were hospitalized in the central Najaf province, and hundreds more in the provinces of Diwaniyah and Dhi Qar, other health officials reported.
Over 400 killed in Darfur paramilitary attacks: UN
- RSF has in recent weeks stepped up its attacks on refugee camps around El-Fasher in its effort to seize the last state capital in Darfur not under its control
GENEVA: More than 400 people have been killed in recent attacks by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the western Darfur region, according to sources cited by the United Nations.
The RSF, at war with the regular army since April 2023, has in recent weeks stepped up its attacks on refugee camps around El-Fasher in its effort to seize the last state capital in Darfur not under its control.
And since late last week, the RSF has launched ground and aerial assaults on El-Fasher itself and the nearby Zamzam and Abu Shouk displacement camps.
Just between Thursday and Saturday last week, the UN rights office “has verified 148 killings,” spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told AFP.
“But this is very much an underestimate as our verification work is ongoing,” she said, stressing that the number did “not even include yesterday’s violence.”
“Credible sources have reported more than 400 killed,” she said.
Her comments came after UN rights chief Volker Turk decried in a statement that the “large-scale attacks ... made starkly clear the cost of inaction by the international community, despite my repeated warnings of heightened risk for civilians in the area.”
“Hundreds of civilians, including at least nine humanitarian workers, were reportedly killed,” he said, warning that “the attacks have exacerbated an already dire protection and humanitarian crisis in a city that has endured a devastating RSF siege since May last year.”
The UN rights chief insisted that “RSF has an obligation under international humanitarian law to ensure the protection of civilians, including from ethnically motivated attacks, and to enable the safe passage of civilians out of the city.”
With the conflict entering its third year on Tuesday, Turk called on all parties “to take meaningful steps toward resolving the conflict.”
Jordan’s King Abdullah, Indonesian president discuss defense cooperation, regional developments
- Indonesia and Jordan signed memorandums of understanding in agriculture, education and religious affairs
- King Abdullah highlighted Indonesia’s vital role in promoting international stability and peace
LONDON: King Abdullah II of Jordan and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto attended a signing ceremony for a defense cooperation agreement and three memorandums of understanding in Amman.
King Abdullah received Subianto on Monday at Al-Husseiniya Palace during the Indonesian leader’s first visit to Jordan since assuming office in March 2024.
Indonesia and Jordan agreed to collaborate on defense and signed memorandums of understanding in agriculture, education and religious affairs.
King Abdullah highlighted Indonesia’s vital role in promoting international stability and peace, Petra news agency reported.
The two leaders condemned Israeli violations of the sanctity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and attempts to divide the site temporally and spatially. King Abdullah said Jordan will continue its religious and historical role in safeguarding Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. He said the war in Gaza and developments in Syria and Lebanon are causing regional instability, Petra added.
Subianto reaffirmed his country’s solidarity with Jordan in defending Palestinian rights and said that Jakarta supports the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The two leaders addressed ways to stop the Israeli war on Gaza, reinstate the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, resume the entry of humanitarian aid and support Palestinians remaining in the coastal enclave.
Subianto said that Jordan and Indonesia have been longtime friends, highlighting his country’s eagerness to continue collaboration with Amman, Petra reported.
Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, the king’s office director Alaa Batayneh, Jordan’s Ambassador to Indonesia Sidqi Omoush, and Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, the king’s chief adviser for religious and cultural affairs, attended the meeting.
Syrian president, Lebanese PM discuss border demarcation weeks after ceasefire
- Lebanese and Syrian leaders agreed to cooperate in the economic field and agreed on creating a ministerial committee to follow up with issues of common interest
CAIRO: Syrian leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa and visiting Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam discussed land and sea border demarcation and security coordination on Monday, weeks after the two countries agreed on a ceasefire that ended cross-border clashes.
“This visit will open a new page in the course of relations between the two countries on the basis of mutual respect and restoration of trust and good neighborliness,” Salam said in a statement released by his office.
The mountainous frontier has been a flashpoint in the months since militants toppled Syria’s Bashar Assad, an ally of Tehran and Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, and installed their own institutions and army.
The latest round of clashes was in March when Syrian troops exchanged fire with Lebanese soldiers and armed groups in northeast Lebanon. Syria accused Hezbollah of crossing into Syrian territory and kidnapping and killing three members of Syria’s army.
Hezbollah, however, denied any involvement. A Lebanese security source told Reuters the three Syrian soldiers had crossed into Lebanon first and were killed by armed members of a tribe who feared their town was under attack.
The two countries’ delegations also discussed the fate of missing and detained Lebanese people in Syria, an issue that came under the spotlight after the toppling of Assad, which led to the opening of prisons and the discovery of collective graves in Syria.
Lebanon says more than 700 Lebanese were detained in Syrian prisons due to the Syrian influence in Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war from 1975 to 1990.
For much of the Assad family’s five decades in power, Syria held significant influence over Lebanon, maintaining a military presence there for 29 years until 2005 despite widespread opposition from many Lebanese.
The Lebanese and Syrian leaders also agreed to cooperate in the economic field and agreed on creating a ministerial committee to follow up with issues of common interest, the Lebanese prime minister’s office said.
