Iraqi refugees question fate, appeal to UNHCR

Iraqi refugees question fate, appeal to UNHCR

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

An Arab woman wearing a black head scarf cuddled a sleeping
10-year-old girl under the open sky of Jakarta. Along the
bustling streets of downtown, dozens of people chatted in Arabic,
while some walked around aimlessly in the scorching heat. They
looked tired and frustrated.

Passersby raised their eyebrows, wondering what was happening,
but looked away with merely a glance. Only a number of security
and police officers kept a watchful eye on them.

A banner on the gate read: "We are present here in peace to
meet UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)."
Another flier in the Indonesian language read: "We gather here as
refugees, asking the Indonesian government to help us leave the
country immediately."

The banner-bearing crowd are asylum seekers from Iraq. They
gathered in front of the UNHCR building to convince the
commission to grant them political refugee status.

"We have slept by this road for four days after leaving our
last refuge in Situbondo (East Java)," Adel Abdel Rahman, one of
the refugees and a Kurdish native of Kirkuk in Northern Iraq,
told The Jakarta Post.

He also said that most of his fellow refugees were broke and
had to depend on other people's generosity and sympathy for their
survival.

"The living cost in Jakarta is very high, and yet we have to
depend our lives on aid from others," he said.

He added that all his fellow countrymen were waiting to be
granted refugee status so that they would be provided with decent
housing and a living allowance.

"The UNHCR will grant the status in three months, so we don't
know how are we going to live during that time," he said in
dismay.

Abdel Rahman, who left Iraq for political reasons, said that
all the Iraqi asylum seekers left their hotel in the East Java
town of Situbondo where they were staying after they had clashed
with local residents.

"The local people did not seem to like us; they resented the
fact that an international organization provided us with hotel
rooms and living provisions, and that we were richer than most
people in the area," he said, referring to the International
Migration Organization (IMO).

He said that after the clash, the group decided to leave the
hotel to avoid further conflicts with local residents.

A UNHCR officer in Jakarta, Rosa Sierra, told the Post that
the cause of the conflict was the lack of awareness on the part
of the refugees to adapt to the local situation.

"Most of them came from the middle and upper classes, but here
in Indonesia they have to eat poor-quality bread and rice
everyday and receive basic healthcare services," she said.

She explained that they sometimes threw their food onto the
street, an attitude which is unacceptable to the local people.

The UN official said all refugees had in fact earlier planned
to visit Australia, a country with higher living standards than
their native country.

"But now that they are stranded in a country that they don't
want to be in, which just adds to their frustration," said Rosa.

Unable to bear the plight of being a homeless refugee in the
country, they called on the Indonesian government to help settle
their problem.

"As people of the same faith, I ask the Vice President Hamzah
Haz to provide a solution to our woes quickly," said Abdel
Rahman.