Refugees Returning to Iraq for First Time Since the War

The first convoy of refugees returning to Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein left their camps in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the United Nations refugee agency said.

To avoid the heat, more than 240 people were traveling by overnight bus from the Rafha camp in northern Saudi Arabia through Kuwait to Basra in southern Iraq, said Kris Janowski, spokesman for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Trucks carried the possessions of the refugees, mostly men who have been away from their native land since 1991.

“Some refugees are desperate to go back to Iraq and rejoin their families,” Janowski said. There was “an atmosphere of excitement” in the camp as the trucks were loaded and the refugees prepared to go home, an agency statement said.

The refugees have been at Rafha, a remote site in the desert, since the Persian Gulf War 12 years ago. Most are army deserters or prisoners taken by the U.S.-led coalition that drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, which Iraq occupied for nearly seven months in 1990 and ’91.

“They’ve been living in very good conditions physically,” Janowski said. “Nonetheless, they’ve been stuck there for a long time with absolutely nothing to do.”

The first group to return to Iraq will be followed by more convoys at 10-day intervals, totaling 3,600 refugees by the end of the year, he said. The camp has more than 5,000 refugees left from a population of about 33,000.

Because of security problems in Iraq, the U.N. agency isn’t encouraging Iraqis to return, but it is willing to assist them if they want to go, Janowski said. More than 25,000 Iraqis were resettled to other countries over the years, while 3,500 returned to Iraq while Hussein was in power, he said.