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Becoming a Refugee
Carolyn Bancroft
Iraqis fleeing to Cairo face a murky labyrinth of survival choices when they arrive and an even murkier bureaucracy when they try to leave. First among the dilemmas is whether to become a refugee.
"Iraqis in Cairo are primarily well-educated, middle-class people, many of whom are professionals. They are here because they have been targeted by militias from both factions of the war who try to kill them because they worked for Americans or coalition forces, or kidnap them for ransom because they have money," says Dr. Barbara Harrell-Bond, distinguished Adjunct Professor of Forced Migration and Refugee Studies (FMRS) at the American University in Cairo (AUC). "They heard that living in Cairo was cheap and jobs were available. They were wrong."
The Egyptian government estimates there are 150,000 Iraqis in Cairo, its suburbs, and in Alexandria; the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR) office in Cairo, however, has registered 10,500 Iraqi family cases, meaning an estimated 70,000 individuals. The FMRS department at AUC is presently conducting a survey to find out why there is a difference in the numbers.
"Many Iraqis think they will stay for four or five months until everything is quite good and then they would go back to their homes," explains a UNHCR employee. "This is a very big mistake, because they start to live the same way they used to live in their home country and after a few months, they are running out of money and they start to face hard reality."
Some Iraqis brought investment money to start a business while they wait out the war, she explains. "They don’t go to UNHCR to be resettled in another country."
Others, when money runs out, take the ‘suicide path’ and go back to Iraq. As the wife of a construction engineer says, "In Iraq, we are not safe but we can eat. Our family helps us. In Egypt, we are safe but we can’t eat."
But most Iraqis who still see the situation in Iraq as too dangerous to return try to get out of Cairo—to anywhere but Iraq. "This is when they start coming to UNHCR to register," says the UNHCR worker.
"When I went down to UNHCR to get the papers, I started to cry," says one Iraqi engineer. "I couldn’t believe I was a refugee."
Here’s the refugee process that Iraqis must navigate: First step: register at UNHCR. All Iraqis are registered as prima facie refugees, which means they are automatically given temporary protection as "persons of concern," according to the 2006 UNHCR Iraq Policy Paper. They are handed a Yellow Card—a yellow passport-sized identity card. Now they can remain in Egypt free from the fear of refoulements, being forced to return to their home country. Then they go home to their Cairo apartments and wait. And wait. The next step is an interview to determine their refugee status, which seems the next step towards being referred for resettlement. UNHCR has three durable solutions for all refugees—voluntary repatriation to their country of origin, integrating into Cairo society ("local integration"), or getting resettled in a country that accepts refugees from UNHCR (Canada, US, Sweden, Australia). Resettlement is a possibility, not a right.
Despite the Yellow Card, life for Iraqis in Cairo is so difficult that local integration seems nearly impossible. "Iraqi refugees in Cairo have a number of rights restricted that other refugees don't have restricted," says Mike Kagan, Senior Human Rights Fellow at AUC, explaining that no refugee in Egypt has many rights but Iraqis actually get fewer. First, they are denied access to public education. Iraqi children are not allowed to attend Egyptian public schools, a violation of international law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. They are allowed, however, to attend private schools, most of which are too expensive for many even with the grant they can received from the Catholic Relief Services which covers part of the costs of school.
Iraqis are also denied the freedom to form local Iraqi associations and freedom to open their own place of worship. According to Kagan, "Security in Egypt have prevented Iraqis from forming community-based organizations which Sudanese, Ethiopians, Somalis have been able to form. They have also been restricted from forming their own houses of worship, for example, Shi'a mosques."
As far as returning to Iraq, a February statement by UNHCR stated that Iraq is still too dangerous to consider returning. And as one Iraqi woman said, "We are in a big predicament with an unknown future. We are damaged, and we can’t plan for the future. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, so how can I plan for myself? I can’t go back to Iraq and I can’t stay here. What can I do?"
