520 Palestinians killed in Iraq

this photo is from Al Awda: For recent exclusive photos from Al-Tanaf refugee camp, please see
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For a factsheet on the current situation of Palestinian refugees stranded on the Iraq borders, please see http://al-awdacal.org/iraq-facts.html

The News International - Pakistan
18 January 2007

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=39304

OCCUPIED-AL-QUDS: Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed or kidnapped in Iraq, and others are stuck in camps on Iraq’s borders, denied permission to enter neighbouring countries, a senior Palestinian official said on Wednesday. About 520 Palestinians in Iraq have disappeared over the past three years, said Zakaria al-Agha, head of refugee affairs for the Palestinian Liberation Organization, in a statement on Wednesday. Some were later found killed, with torture marks on their bodies, he said. “Who ever speaks the Palestinian accent in Baghdad is snatched and killed,” al-Agha said. Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas appealed on Wednesday for an end to the killing. The numbers al-Agha cited could not be independently confirmed. About 20,000 Palestinians live in Iraq. Many Iraqis associate the country’s Palestinians with deposed ruler Saddam Hussein’s bloody rule, and they have been systematically attacked there, said Bill Frelick, refugee policy director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, which recently issued a report on Iraqi refugees. Thousands have tried to flee, Frelick said. A few hundred have settled in Western countries, but many others are trapped. Neighbouring Jordan and Syria are unwilling to take in Palestinian refugees, including more than 300 stranded in “no man’s land” on the Jordanian border in harsh desert conditions. Both countries settled hundreds and thousands of Palestinian refugees and their descendants who fled or were evicted during the1948 war that followed Israel’s establishment. “They feel they’ve already paid their dues to Palestinian refugees,” Frelick said.