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Over two dozen Palestinians return to Iraq from UN camps in Jordan

Over two dozen Palestinians return to Iraq from UN camps in Jordan

Twenty-six Palestinians who last year fled the conflict in Iraq have returned from a United Nations refugee camp in Jordan's eastern desert, a UN spokesman reported today.

While the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is not promoting returns to Iraq, "the Palestinians felt they would be better off [there] despite the current insecurity and uncertainty," agency spokesman Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva.

UNHCR helped the returning Palestinians to cover their travel expenses and provided several months of rental support for their first months back in Baghdad.

Thousands of people, including hundreds of Palestinians, fled Iraq for the safety of Jordan during last year's conflict. More than 1,500 are in UNHCR-assisted camps, including some 1,100 people in a makeshift site in the no-man's-land on the Iraqi frontier, and nearly 400 in Jordan's Ruweished refugee camp.

"UNHCR has worked very closely over the past year with the Jordanian Government, which has long been very hospitable to refugees and found solutions for individual cases," Mr. Redmond said.

Last year, Jordan accepted nearly 400 Palestinians with Jordanian spouses who had fled Iraq, according to UNHCR. While the remaining 350 or so Palestinians wanted to go to their homes in the West Bank and Gaza, and even to Israel, the agency could not get parties to accept the return of this group, nor are any other States so far willing to accept them.