World receiving more Iraqi refugees
GENEVA -- The number of Iraqis seeking asylum in industrialized countries during the first half of 2007 more than doubled from the same period last year, the U.N. refugee agency said Friday.
Some 19,800 Iraqis requested asylum in 36 Western countries between January and June, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said. There were 8,500 in the first half of 2006.
Sweden was the most popular destination for Iraqi asylum seekers, with nearly half of the applications filed this year in industrialized countries -- 9,300 people, UNHCR said.
"The large Iraqi community and its strong social network in Sweden might be part of the reasons for the high concentration of Iraqi asylum seekers going to that country," spokesman Ron Redmond said.
Greece was No. 2 with some 3,500 asylum requests, followed by Spain with 1,500 and Germany with 820. Only 385 Iraqis sought asylum in the United States.
Redmond said the number was low in part because the U.S. is so far from Iraq. "They would have to be resettled to the United States unless somehow they spontaneously turned up at an airport or at the border," he told reporters.
The agency's figures reflect only the number of refugee applications filed and do not indicate how many requests were accepted.
UNHCR said 2.2 million Iraqis are now living outside their homeland, mostly in neighboring countries not included in the industrialized country statistics. About 1.5 million are in Syria, 750,000 in Jordan, 150,000 in Egypt, 50,000 in Iran and 20,000 in Turkey.
Despite the low number of Iraqis seeking haven in the United States, that country received by far the largest number of asylum requests from people around the globe in the first half of the year -- some 26,800, the agency said.
Sweden was second with 17,700, followed by Greece (14,700), France (14,000), Britain (12,700), Canada (11,400), Germany (8,200) and Austria (5,700).
Most of the asylum applicants during the first six months came from Iraq -- 19,800. China was the second biggest country of origin with 8,600, followed by Pakistan (7,300), Serbia and Montenegro (7,200) and Russia (6,500), UNHCR said.
The agency said asylum requests to industrialized nations had been declining until the second half of 2006, when the number began rising.
The Bush administration said this week that it intended to sharply increase the number of Iraqi refugees it admits next year.
The United States has accepted 900 Iraqis for resettlement so far this year, Ellen Sauerbrey, an assistant secretary of state, told the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom at a hearing Wednesday.
"We have a moral obligation to protect Iraqi refugees, particularly those who belong to persecuted religious minorities as well as those who have worked closely with the United States government since the fall of Saddam Hussein," she said.
Sauerbrey did not give a number for Iraqi admissions in 2008 but said it would be "substantially higher."
Washington's initial target for Iraqi resettlements to the United States this year was 7,000, but later reduced that to 2,000. The government acknowledges the eight to 10 months it takes to process Iraqi refugees is too long.
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Associated Press writer Alexander G. Higgins contributed to this report.