by Tim Reid
06/01/2007

To read the entire article, click here.

Below is an excerpt from the AFP:

Millions of refugees fleeing the chaos and bloodshed in war-torn Iraq have found the road to the United States firmly blocked, with only a few hundred so far finding a safe haven here.

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US authorities finally began to acknowledge the magnitude of the problem at the beginning of the year and have promised to take in some 7,000 refugees by the end of the fiscal year, October 1.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said improved screening operations had opened the door to the Iraq resettlement program.

The government was committed to accepting up to 7,000 "of the most vulnerable Iraqi refugees, such as persons whose lives may be in jeopardy because they worked for coalition forces," he said.

This week the US administration announced that 59 Iraqis would be permitted to emigrate to the US, joining the 701 refugees already granted asylum here.

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"We have been much less generous with the Iraqi refugees ... So far the Iraqi resettlement has been inexcusably low, deplorably low," said Ken Bacon, head of Refugees International, a Washington-based non-governmental organization.

"We've let in far too few, the process has taken way too long," he added.

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But Bacon cautioned that it was unlikely that all 7,000 of those approved for re-settlement would arrive before October 1. "By the end of the year they might reach 7,000, but by the end of the fiscal year it's more likely they'll do 2,000 or 3,000," he said.

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"So my hope is that everything will speed up and that's also the hope of the State Department and Homeland Security as well," said Bacon. Teams are ready to go to Syria, Jordan and may be Egypt to "do a lot of interviews in a short period of time to try to get the processing going as quickly as possible," he added.

According to Refugees International, the UNHCR as of May 18 had referred 4,692 Iraqis to the US, as candidates for resettlement already screened by the UNHCR.

There is also a separate group of people who worked for the US, as translators for the military or US contractors who have been targeted by insurgents. Many of them have already left the country, and special procedures are to be put in place for them, Refugees International said.