AZG Armenian Daily #205, 27/10/2006
Middle East
AS RESULT OF WAR IN IRAQ, 3 MILLION PEOPLE BECAME IMMIGRANTS
After the March invasion of the American Armed Forces of Iraq in 2003,
about 1,6 million of Iraqi residents had left their country. According
to the UN Commission for Refugees, 1,5 million people became refugees
in the country itself. Taking into account the fact that Iraq’s
population amount to about 26 million, we can say that as a result of
the war, 12 % of the country’s residents became refugees.
According to the British The Independent newspaper, most of the Iraqi
refugees settle down in Jordan or Syria. Since 2003, Jordan accepted
500 thousand Iraqi refugees, Syria 450 thousand. Every month, about 40
thousand people leave Iraq for Syria.
In the first half of 2006, there have been 14 thousand loses among the
civil residents of the country. According to the data of the American
health Institute at the John Hopkins University, in the years of the
war in Iraq 655 thousand people died.
By Petros Keshishian