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<p>WASHINGTON - The United States allowed in more than 2,300 Iraqi refugees last month, setting a record and putting the Bush administration on pace to surpass its goal of accepting 12,000 by the end of September.</p> <p>The State Department said Friday that 2,352 Iraqi refugees had arrived in the country in July, shattering the previous monthly record of 1,721 from June.</p>

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- More than 1,000 refugees from Iraq arrived in the United States in May, the most in recent months, bringing the fiscal-year total to 4,742 so far, the State Department reported June 3. But with just four months left in the fiscal year, the administration's objective of resettling 12,000 Iraqis in the U.S. by October is far from being reached, said Anastasia Brown, director of refugee programs for Migration and Refugee Services of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. She added that even that goal is an inadequate fraction of the estimated 4.9 million Iraqis who have been...

SODERTALJE, Sweden -- Behind the wheel of his old Ford Escort, Oshin Merzoian puttered happily along snowy streets. Back home in Baghdad, he said, he always drove at crazy speeds to avoid killers and kidnappers. But here in "Little Baghdad," as this city that has accepted roughly as many Iraqi refugees as the entire United States is called, Merzoian is enjoying the luxuries of living in peace. He doesn't strap on a gun for protection, and he notes that Swedish police worry more about seat belts than roadside bombs. "Even if they remake Iraq from gold and diamonds, I wouldn't...

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...

CAIRO, EGYPT — Ahmed Hilmy, agitated and anxious, walked into the Iraqi Airways office in downtown Cairo to find out whether he had cleared the waiting list for a confirmed seat on the next day's flight to Baghdad. The green-clad ticket agent tapped in Hilmy's name, punched a few more computer keys, then looked up with a smile. "You're on," she said. Hilmy's face relaxed with a broad grin. After eight months as a refugee in Egypt, he was going home. "I'm so happy," he said. "It's not totally secure, not everything is safe, but it's better than staying here...

DAMASCUS, Syria—If only Iraqi refugees were returning to their homeland because they believed it is now safe. If only the reported boom in crossings at the Syrian-Iraqi border really meant that relieved returnees were eagerly going home. Alas, while some Iraqis decided to end their forced exile this fall, their decision had at least as much to do with the deteriorating situation in their host country as with improved conditions in their homeland. The phenomenon seems to affect only those Iraqis stranded in Syria. I spent most of November in the Middle East; among Iraqi refugees in Jordan and among...

The figures are hard to estimate precisely but the process could involve hundreds of thousands of people. The numbers are certainly large enough, as we report today, for a mass convoy to be planned next week as Iraqis who had opted for exile in Syria return to their homeland. It is one of the most striking signs that not only has violence in Baghdad and adjacent provinces decreased dramatically in recent months, but confidence in the economic and political future of Iraq has risen sharply. Nor is this movement the action of men and women who could easily reverse course...

Iraqi refugees are returning home in dramatic numbers, concluding that security in Baghdad has been transformed. Thousands have left their refuge in Syria in recent months, according to some estimates. The Iraqi Embassy is organising a secure mass convoy from Damascus to Baghdad on Monday for refugees who want to drive back. Embassy notices went up around the Syrian capital yesterday, offering free bus and train rides home. Saida Zaynab, the Damascus neighbourhoods once dominated by many of the 1.5 million Iraqi refugees, is almost deserted. Apartment prices are plummeting and once-crowded shops and buses are half empty.

Come home, come home, Ye who are weary, come home; ...Most Reverend Shlemon Warduni, Auxiliary Bishop of the St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Diocese for Chaldeans and Assyrians in Iraq officiated standing directly beneath the dome under the Chaldean cross. Speaking in both Arabic and English, Bishop Warduni thanked those American soldiers sitting in the pews for their sacrifices. Again and again, throughout the service, he thanked the Americans. .........Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John’s. Muslims who want their Christian friends and neighbors to come home. The Christians who might see these photos likely will recognize...

WASHINGTON — Prodded by Congress and human rights groups, the Bush administration is promising to increase the pace for allowing Iraqi refugees into the United States. Of the estimated 4.2 million Iraqis displaced by the war, either to nearby countries or within Iraq, only 68 Iraqis legally entered the U.S. between October and June as refugees, State Department and Homeland Security officials acknowledged Friday.

Iraqis Could Wait 2 Years for Entry, Ambassador Says: The U.S. ambassador to Iraq warned that it may take the U.S. government as long as two years to process and admit nearly 10,000 Iraqi refugees referred by the United Nations for resettlement to the United States, because of bureaucratic bottlenecks. In a State Department cable titled "Iraqi Refugee Processing: Can We Speed It Up?" Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker noted that the Department of Homeland Security had only a handful of officers in Jordan to vet the refugees.... Human rights groups and independent analysts say thousands of desperate Iraqis who have...

Amman, Jordan - Adnan Abbas – with his poor English, four young daughters, and little money to speak of – shrugs when told that making a new life in the US will be hard. "I know that a new country, new language, is difficult and that America isn't going to say, 'Welcome, Adnan, here's a million dollars,' " he says. "But life in Iraq? That's impossible. We're one of the luckiest families in the world." On Tuesday, the Abbas family will take their five small suitcases, close the door on the small flat they've rented for the past year in...

PEWSEY, WILTSHIRE, UK -- Against a backdrop of unremitting violence and the constant threat of persecution, Iraqi Christians are being forced out of their communities and onto the road in a desperate search for safety. In the third of a series of special reports on life within Iraq, Barnabas Fund, based in the UK, has discovered that life as a Christian refugee brings its own dangers and hardships. “Leaving your home, your job, the life you have always known,” said the report posted on their website – www.barnabasfund.org. “Fleeing for your life, with nothing but your memories, to an unknown...

The Arabs that pushed us to war in Iraq, Where are they now?http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1951039.stm Iraqi refugees hope for US strike http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP19601 An Egyptian Columnist Attacks Pro-Iraqi Arab Lobby (so there is an Arab Lobby pro Iraq war...) http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000681.html Arabs, not Jews, driving Bush’s Iraq plans” (2002) http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june98/iraq_4-27.html Iraqi refugees now in the US are united by tragedy, hatred of Saddam Hussein ... Give us the temporary support we need (1998) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/iraq/stories/arabs7.htm Arab states have escalated their attacks on Iraqi President Saddam ... "There is no shred of support for Saddam anywhere in the Arab scene," (1999) _______________ Above are just a...

Iraqi refugee Guzin Najim thought she'd be safe when she escaped to Australia after her diplomat husband was murdered by Saddam Hussein's brutal secret police and she'd been forced to live, with her children, for three years under house arrest. But the terror has reached Sydney. Religious fanatics faithful to the murderous tyrant have delivered death threats to her home in the city's south-western suburbs, forcing her once again to flee for her life. Now Ms Najim, 47, has moved to a secret location to hide from the men who have ordered that her throat be cut for speaking out...

<p>As they sit in the comfortable living room of their Nashville home, members of the Tayip family say the horrors they experienced in their northern Iraq homeland seem further away every year.</p> <p>But to this day, they say, their suffering and hardships continue to shape their lives and how they see the world.</p>

Iraqi refugees: Al-Sahaf committed suicide 15-04-2003, 11:46 Iraqi refugees who have taken shelter at Iraq's borders near the Iranian town of Dehloran over the week have claimed that Information Minister Saeed al-Sahaf had committed suicide, the Iranian newspaper, Mardomsalari reported Tuesday. A similar report was published in Iran's Arabic newspaper, Al Wifaq. According to these reports, al-Sahaf hanged himself a few hours before Baghdad fell to US forces on April 9th. The refugees gave no source to confirm their claim. In his press briefing on Monday, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, said the US government believed former Iraqi leaders,...

In packed vehicles, Iraqis return home to Baghdad By Edmund Blair BAGHDAD, April 13 (Reuters) - Piled into trucks, clinging to the back of old pick-ups and crushed into rickety saloon cars, thousands of Iraqis returned home to Baghdad on Sunday after fleeing the war to towns outside the city. They had escaped in fear as U.S.-led forces bombed the city when Saddam Hussein still had an iron grip. They returned with smiles and flicking victory V-signs. One man shouted "Down, down, Saddam" from his precarious seat on top of bags and blankets on the back of truck carrying more...

RUWEISHED, Jordan (BP)--God cares about refugees fleeing hostilities in Iraq, so it is critical that God's people be in their midst -- and not leave ministries to secular organizations, a Southern Baptist missions leader says. Soon after the Iraq war began in March, Southern Baptists were among the first to set up a ministry center for refugees near this desert town in eastern Jordan near the Iraqi border. "We think it is vital for God's people to help with these helping ministries and not just leave it for secular agencies," says John Brady, who coordinates the work of Southern Baptists'...

Pavarotti, Bono To Sing For Iraqi Refugees Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti and U2 frontman Bono will team up on stage next month to raise funds to help Iraqis uprooted by the war, the United Nations refugee agency said today (April 8). The concert is set for May 27 in Modena, northern Italy, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Pavarotti and Bono previously performed together in 1995 to raise funds for child victims of the war in Bosnia. Pavarotti, a peace messenger for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, has dedicated his last three annual Modena charity concerts to help...