Harsh conditions await refugees

By Viv Robins

The 200 or so refugees who had spent the past decade in exile in Saudi Arabia had been desperate to return home, even staging sit-ins and hunger strikes to get their way.

Some Iraqis fled the arrival of US-led forces

But they will find conditions in post-war Iraq a harsh contrast with the life of relative luxury they led at their desert camp in Rafha, where their accommodation was air-conditioned and they received a monthly allowance and food rations from the Saudi Government.

They return to a country that remains tense and unstable, with coalition forces still under guerrilla attack, electricity and water supplies still disrupted, many shops and businesses destroyed and more than half the adult Iraqi population unemployed.

Saddam Hussein remains at large and, with an interim American-led governing council in charge, the Iraqi dream of running their own government still looks some way off.

Click below to see a map of refugee camps in the region

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Given the current climate, Peter Kessler, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said that exiled Iraqis were certainly not being encouraged to return, but the determination of this particular group could not be resisted.

"These people haven't seen their relatives in years," Mr Kessler says.

"They miss their families greatly and the Saudi authorities, the Kuwaiti Government and the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) in Baghdad all agreed that if they wish to return after a thorough briefing on the delicate security situation in the country, the lack of water, electricity and employment in many areas and still wish to return, that they should be allowed to do so."

But the UNHCR's message to the half million Iraqis worldwide who are thought likely to want to return is that it would be better to wait until the situation had stabilised in a year or so.