First UN-assisted convoy of Iraqi refugees returns home

The first convoy of refugees returning to Iraq since the fall of the previous government left Saudi Arabia's Rafha camp today with more than 240 people in five buses, ending more than 12 years in exile, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported.

“Today’s convoy marks the beginning of the end of Rafha refugee camp, a chance for long-time refugees to finally return to their homeland,” UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner Kamel Morjane said.

The convoy will travel along Saudi Arabia’s northern desert overnight escorted by UNHCR and Saudi officials, transit through Kuwait early on Wednesday and is expected to reach the southern Iraqi city of Basra later in the morning.

The agency expects more than 3,600 of the 5,200 refugees in Rafha camp to repatriate before the end of the year. Regular repatriation convoys, each transporting at least 250 refugees, are planned by UNHCR, the Saudi authorities and Iraq’s United States-run Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA).

Rafha’s refugees began pressing to leave in April when Saddam Hussein’s government fell, at times even holding sit-ins to pressure relief officials to organize their return as quickly as possible.

As the situation in Iraq improves, more refugees will be seeking to go back with UNHCR assistance. Of the some 1 million Iraqi refugees and other people of concern to UNHCR worldwide, as many as 500,000 could seek help to return to Iraq, with significant numbers expected in 2004.

On activities relating to the Oil-for-Food programme, weekly meetings of UN and Iraqi experts and the CPA have so far produced a list of prioritized contracts valued at almost $2.5 billion for early delivery to Iraq. The programme, under which the former sanctions-bound regime was allowed to use oil sales to buy the food and humanitarian supplies and on which 60 per cent of Iraqis had depended as their sole source of sustenance, is to be phased out by November.

On the political side, Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Special Representative for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, held discussions today with Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and a member of the Iraqi Governing Council. Among issues discussed were drafting the new Constitution and the technical assistance the UN can provide on a number of fronts, including preparation for and holding of elections.