Talk:Refugees of Iraq

Proposed contributions and revisions
I am a student at Rice University, and I am planning on revising and adding to this article as part of my "Human Development in Global and Local Communities" course. The course banner is available above. I hope that my contributions will be a valuable addition to this article and Wikipedia. Currently, this article is full of a lot of statistics. Some of these seem to be in contention, such as the "40% of all Iraqi refugees" are Christian assertion. I plan on investigating the statistics that previous users on the Talk page have noted as potentially problematic. I also hope to add more recent sources, as the majority of the sources for the article are more than 5 years old. Continual revision and updating is important for an ongoing issue. In addition to updating and verifying current statistics and sources, I intend to add a section titled “Causes of Iraqi refugee crises”, which gives a brief overview of the Persian Gulf War and the current Iraq War that has pushed Iraqis out of the country. This will replace the current section titled “Iraq War”, but I intend to transfer over the existing content. I will include a section on the immediate solutions to the refugee influxes, including refugee camps and resettlement. I also hope to better organize the sections for the main countries accepting Iraqi refugees, including Syria, Jordan, Egypt, the United States, and a general "other nations". Each of these sections will contain subsections on the process for entry, response of the host country, and services provided to refugees, along with discussion of significant refugee communities in these countries. I also hope to add a more substantial section on the challenges that the growing Iraqi refugee population faces, such as barriers to education, a lack of resources and services, and job opportunities in their host countries. My final proposed contribution is a section on specific policies and programs that try to mitigate these issues and to expand the 'International conferences on Iraqi refugee crisis section". Please voice any concerns or suggestions so that we can make this topic more than "start class".

Here is my proposed article outline:

1 Iraq War Causes of the Iraqi refugee crisis

1.1	Iran-Iraq War

1.2	Persian-Gulf War

1.3	Iraq War

2. Management of refugee crisis

2.1 Refugee camps

2.2 Resettlement in other countries

1.1 3 Host countries

3.1.1 Jordan

3.1.1.2 Process for entry

3.1.1.3 Response to refugee influx

3.1.2 Syria

3.1.2.1 Process for entry

3.1.2.2 Response to refugee influx

3.1.2.3 Restrictions on refugees

3.1.2.4 Refugees flee Syrian civil war, and targeted executions

3.1.3 Egypt

3.1.3.1 Process for entry

3.1.3.2 Response to refugee influx

3.1.4 United States

3.1.4.1 Process for entry

3.1.4.2 Response to refugee influx

3.1.5 Other countries

4 1.2 Minorities

4.1 1.2.1 Christians

4.2 1.2.2 Mandaeans

4.3 1.2.3 Palestinians

4.4 1.2.4 Yazidis

2 Refugee settlement beyond the Middle East

5 The need for aid and essential services Challenges facing Iraqi refugees

5.1 Resources

5.2 Employment

5.3 Education

5.4 Health

5.4.1 Mental health

5.5 Barriers to return

6 International conferences on Iraqi refugee crisis

7 See also

8 References

9 External links

Samanthaplove (talk) 20:57, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Hello Samanthaplove! It's great to hear about your effort to contribute to this article. I'm looking forward to the results of your contributions. The outline you proposed looks good. I'd be very impressed if you can manage to find reliable information about all the subjects you listed. A few points:
 * 1. In the host countries section you mention the U.S. and middle eastern countries. The middle eastern countries that share their border with Iraq obviously take in the biggest part of the refugees. I don't know what the scope of your research is but it might be interesting to research the flow of refugees to Europe. I know that a few years ago there was a controversial issue with Iraqi refugees being forced to return to Iraq which at the time was considered to be unsafe. I don't have any reliable statistics about this so you might choose to ignore it if you think it's not relevant.
 * 2. This is entirely an assumption on my part but my hypothesis is that during the Iran-Iraq war and the Gulf war the biggest non-minority refugees were Kurds while in the 2003 Iraq War the biggest group of refugees were Arabs. It might be interesting to research why Kurds decided to flee the first two wars but stay in the third and Arabs the other way around. Again I don't know what the scope of your research is so this might not be very relevant to your research
 * I can help you create SVG chart/graphics if you need to visualize a lot of data. Good luck with your research! ~ Zirguezi 16:00, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestions and encouragement, Zirguezi. This is my second experience revising a Wikipedia article and I am open to any help! I just posted my preliminary contributions. This will be an ongoing project for the next couple of months. I found some information on the Iraqi refugee population in Europe, but I am looking for newer sources on the subject. I also addressed the Kurds in the section on the Persian Gulf War, but I plan on adding a section on the Kurds under the "Minorities" heading. Presently, I have only worked on the introduction, the Persian Gulf War, the Iraq War, the "Host countries" sections, and the more general "Resettlement in other countries" section. I tried to eliminate or find citations for previously un-cited material, although I removed some of it entirely because it was out of date and conflicted with sources I have read. I definitely plan on finding many more sources to back up what I already have, since I rely on only a handful of articles.

Samanthaplove (talk) 06:50, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Peer review of student contribution
So far, I think Samanthaplove has done a great job in adding to this article. The article is rather comprehensive, covering a broad range of subjects and countries, and has extensive information on each topic. I would suggest expanding upon the Egypt section if there is more available information, and would also suggest expanding on some of the topics within the causes section. Currently, the section serves as a crash course in Iraqi refugee history, which is rather well done, but some rather significant topics as glossed over (such as Desert Storm). Section formatting gets a little clunky in the Syria section, so that could be addressed rather easily. Finally, the references section needs attending to. Currently, there is no standard for including author names or proving the source to be academic or reliable. This would be monotonous work, but would greatly benefit the ability of the reader to verify reference quality. DerekHolliday (talk) 22:35, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Suggestions for revision
Hello, Samanthaplove!

You’ve done a fantastic job in developing this article. I really enjoy the different perspectives that you have added in understanding the refugees of Iraq, particularly the perspectives of different countries around the world. Work on making your introduction a broader view of the entire article, and save the statistics for later in the article. Having too many numbers at the beginning of your article may bog down the reader, and the statistics may be more relevant to certain sections of your article. Be sure you are finding multiple sources in order to support your claims. Additionally, be sure you are maintaining a neutral tone throughout your article. Subtle words may have a greater effect than anticipated - Words like "strained infrastructure," for example. You have done a phenomenal job with this article and I look forward to seeing what you do next with the article! Deniselee26 (talk) 23:41, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Merger with Iraqi diaspora discussion
I would give my assent to the proposed merger. Please see my comments on that article's Talk page regarding religious and ethnic minorities. Dogru144 00:29, 14 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Strongly object to merger: Diaspora and refugees are completely different concepts. Internal refugees are not part of a diaspora. (Sarah777 07:23, 31 May 2007 (UTC))
 * Change of earlier position, to Object. The diaspora began in the early part of the 20th Century.  The refugee phenomenon and crisis began in 2003, after the invasion. Dogru144 09:28, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Object. It seems many people left before the Iraq War. I suggest changing the name of this article to Refugees of the Iraq War to clarify the difference with the article, Iraqi diaspora, which covers a much longer period. --Timeshifter 02:45, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Object This article is about the current refugee problem caused in the region by the recent (2003-present) conflict in Iraq, this is a totally unrelated topic to the wider 'Iraqi diaspora' outside Iraq, someone should remove that suggestion template, the term diaspora and refugee are unrelated anyway, and I agree with the suggestion by Timeshifter  Bleh999 19:05, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Question on figure
I believe the 1.4 million Iraqi refugees figure is unfounded. It may be a faulty quotation from UNHCR:

"Iran continued to host the largest number of refugees of any country in the world in 1996. The total included 1,400,000 Afghan refugees and 580,000 Iraqi refugees. Another 40,000 persons listed by the government of the Islamic Republic as being “displaced” are most likely refugees of other nationalities, including Bosnians, Tajiks, Azerbaijanis, and others."

Maybe it'd be best to put "citation needed" on the sentence.


 * The above anonymous author has not set out a logical justification for the questioning of the UNHCR figure. No, it is not appropriate to add citation needed.  The UNHCR data is sufficient. This editor"s argument reeks of POV. Dogru144 01:56, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I also believe many figures/statements of this article are unfounded. I was reading through this article quickly and saw a highly dubious statement claiming that 40% of iraqi refugees are of christian denomination. This felt very wrong for several reasons: christians are only 3-5% of the population, as much as 25% of iraqis have left the country and also, I do not believe christians have been targeted more than any other denomination. I corrected that claim and found two university studies (which I referenced) that support a more reasonable number (12-13% as opposed to 40%).

Overall, many references in this article are from secondary sources, that is news articles that reference a primary source. This is not an acceptable way to proceed in my opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.5.169.42 (talk) 11:46, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Refugee sections of other articles
Can some editors from this article also coordinate the Iraqi refugee sections of
 * Iraq War
 * Casualties of the conflict in Iraq since 2003

For example of some lack of coordination of info, in the various articles there seem to be varying numbers for the number of Christian refugees.

The 2 articles need very short sections summarizing the main refugeee points. The Iraq War article section especially needs to be short, because many articles are spunout from that article, and there is little room to summarize those many articles there. Please see WP:SPINOUT.

I just don't have time to keep up with the refugee issues, updates, references, etc.. I have enough trouble helping keep the casualty stats and references up to date. Thanks for all the work you have done editing the refugee info in all the articles.

Here is the old Christian refugees info, and the following paragraph, that I removed from the Iraq War article:

UNHCR reports that Christians comprise 44% of Iraqi refugees, although only 4% of the overall population is Christian. Iraq's Christian community numbered 1.4 million in 1981 at the start of Iran-Iraq War. But as the 2003 invasion has radicalized Islamic sensibilities, Christians' total numbers slumped to about 500,000, of whom 250,000 live in Baghdad. As a small minority without a militia of their own, Iraqi Christians have been persecuted by both Shi’a and Sunni Muslim militias, and also by criminal gangs. There are some uncorroborated claims made to Dutch Parliament member Joel Voordewind that in some cases, Iraqi Christians, or people involved in mixed marriages, have been crucified by militants.

Most refugees ventured to Jordan and Syria, creating demographic shifts that have worried both governments. A fear persisted in both countries, and others hosting sizable Iraqi refugee populations, that sectarian tensions would spill over amongst the exiles. These refugees were estimated to have been leaving Iraq at a rate of 3000-per-day by December 2006.

The Christian refugees info incorrectly summarizes the reference articles. Especially the numbers, the timeline, and the percentages.

The whole refugee section in Iraq War needs to be summarized in around 3 or 4 paragraphs. People can come here for the full picture.

Here is the info removed from Casualties of the conflict in Iraq since 2003:

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees reports that Christians comprise 44% of Iraqi refugees, although only 4% of the overall population is Christian. Iraq's Christian community numbered 1.4 million in 1980 at the start of Iran-Iraq War. But as the current war has radicalized Islamic sensibilities, Christians have seen their total numbers slump to about 500,000 today, of whom 250,000 live in Baghdad.

The numbers are all confused in it too. --Timeshifter 02:35, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

There is a logic error early in the post. "In April 2007, there was an estimate of over 4 million Iraqi refugees around the world, including 1.9 million in Iraq, ..." How can you be a refugee who fled to your own country? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Markddude (talk • contribs) 01:33, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Kurish region?
As of 2017-03-01, the section on "Internally displaced Iraqis" includes a comment that "About 200,000 IDPs have sought refuge in the Kurish region. IDPs in the Kurdish region face .. ." I assume that "Kurish" is "Kurdish", and not a reference to something different. I will change "Kurish" to "Kurdish". If this is not correct, I trust someone else will fix this -- and provide a link to something that explains "Kurish" ;-)  DavidMCEddy (talk) 19:39, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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