46,000 Iraqis have left Syria

msn.com ^ | Jan. 4, 2008 | Amit R. Paley

[forkinsocket]

BAGHDAD, Jan. 4 - Nearly 50,000 Iraqi refugees returned home from Syria in the final 3 1/2 months of 2007, the latest sign of diminishing violence in this war-pocked country, according to new data from relief workers.

"Security has definitely improved, and improved by far," said Said I. Hakki, president of the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, the aid group that compiled the statistics. "And yet the return is really not that dramatic, when you consider that there are almost 2 million Iraqi refugees out of the country."

The new figures, contained in a report scheduled for release Monday, are significantly lower than those provided by some Iraqi officials. One Iraqi spokesman said nearly 50,000 returned in October alone.

But the minister of displacement and migration, Abdul Samad Rahman Sultan, said in an interview Friday that the Red Crescent numbers were more or less accurate. He said the growing number of returning refugees was becoming a major challenge for his ministry, which has not yet received money to support them.

"We need more support, more backup," Sultan said. "We have funds to support internally displaced people, but not those refugees returning from outside the country."

The Red Crescent report estimates that 45,913 refugees returned to Iraq from Syria between Sept. 15 and Dec. 27. Most of them came to Baghdad, with only 7,177 returning to provinces in the rest of the country, the group concluded.

[forkinsocket]

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[Anti-Bubba182]

I wonder how many of those Iraqis are people one would want back?

[CPT Clay]

Good news?

[forkinsocket]

I understand your cynicism, but I think it’s good news that Iraq is becoming livable again.

[SandRat]

If Iraqi exPats are coming home it could be good news, notice I said could, if they are not Baathists or some other sort of low life. Time will tell.

[ME-262]

It sounds like the “Quagmire” is drying out as planned.