Palestinian refugees in al-Rweished camp return back to Iraq
Jordan-Iraq, Politics, 5/29/2004

The UNHCR announced that 46 Palestinians who were pending in al-Rweished camp, to the north of Jordan near the border with Iraq, left the camp and returned back to Iraq.

These people lived for 14 months in state of waiting in the desert on the hope they will be able to return back to the Palestinian territories or to Israel or to any Arab state.

In a statement, the UNHCR explained that other 50 Palestinians are preparing to return back to Iraq within the few coming days which means only scores of the displaced Palestinians will continue to stay in the camp.

UNHCR official Peter Kessler said his organization does not encourage return back to Iraq and it had notified the Palestinians about instable security, but they preferred to return back rather than stay the in the heart of the desert, two months of losing any hope to settle in any country.

Kessler indicated that the number of Palestinians registered in Iraq is estimated at 23,000 according to the recent statistics but the real number is expected between 35,000 and 42,000 resorted to Iraq after the of 1948.

Most of the Palestinian refugees in the camp carry Syrian, Egyptian or Lebanese document travel but all of these countries refused to receive then despite the efforts madder by the PLO. Israel also rejected their return back to the West Bank.

In 2003, Jordan permitted 386 Palestinians married to Jordanian women from entering to Jordan. Two weeks ago, Jordan offered official residence for the brother of the former commander in the Hamas movement in Gaza, Abdul Aziz al-Ranteisi, who was assassinated by the Israeli occupation forces in April.

Previous Stories:
  King Abdullah: we do not have the right to send forces to Iraq   (5/18/2004)
  Saddam's wife assigns a Jordanian lawyer to defend her husband   (4/27/2004)
  An attempt to smuggle the epitaph of Michael Aflaq tomb   (3/26/2004)

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