One quarter of the world dislocated are Arabs; 18% are Palestinians, one million Lebanese in their homeland
Regional, Politics, 3/12/2004

A Study recently issued in Syria says that one quarter of the refugees and evacuees in the world belong to the Arab states and the Palestinians and the Iraqis constitute the majority of this rate.

The study was prepared by a Syrian national team composed of governmental staff and others working for UN organization and presented by the Syrian delegation to the Arab woman and armed conflicts forum which was held in Beirut. The research which concentrated on various "impacts of armed conflicts on social conditions " have the Arab individual a large space for the conditions of expelled, evacuees and refugees and draw a conclusion following a study of population conditions in each of Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Algeria and the occupied Golan Syrian heights that some 25% of the displaced and refugees in the world are from the Arab states.

The research explained that at the level of "compulsory evacuation," armed conflicts in the Arab states resulted in the expulsion of huge number of civilians, including "displacing and uprooting 5 million Palestinians since the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1948 so as the Palestinians to form today almost 18% of refugees in the world." However, the civil war in Lebanon ( between 1975- 1991 ) and the Israeli invasion of its lands ( 1978 and 1982 ) resulted to the dislocation of one million Lebanese into inside Lebanon and many others outside it.

In Syria, the Israeli occupation of the Golan heights in 1967 led to the evacuation of 138,000 of the total population of the Golan who tolled then 153,000. Today the number of those evacuees together with their children and grandchildren toll almost half a million.

As for the Iraqis, the research indicates that " armed conflicts and flagrant violations of human rights, in addition to economic besiege and the official policies conducted by previous governments " resulted in displacing what was estimated in ( 2001) to one and a half to two million Iraqi citizens outside Iraq."

Meanwhile, the civil war in Algeria led to "forcing more than 300,000 citizens to leave their homes, while in Sudan, the civil wars and tribal conflicts which erupted more than 30 years ago led to the expulsions of 4 million Sudanese. More than 350,000 Somalis are still displaced since the beginning of the civil war and tribal conflicts in Somalia in 1988. " On these bases the research concludes that " some 25% of the total number of evacuees and refugees in the world are from the Arab world."

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