ROMANIA - First Group of Palestinian Refugees Arrives in Emergency Transit Centre - A first group of 59 Palestinian refugees who remained stranded for many years in an overcrowded makeshift camp in the Iraqi desert, arrived safely yesterday at a new Emergency Training Centre in the northern Romanian city of Timisoara.
IOM and UNHCR accompanied the families from Al Waleed camp to the Jordanian border, and then onwards to Amman's Marka airport, where they boarded an IOM-chartered flight for Timisoara.
"The families were exhausted but so happy to have left the dire living conditions in Al Waleed camp," says IOM's Haifa Khalil, who helped the families in transit at the airport. "All said they looked forward to the prospect of starting new lives in resettlement countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom."
The refugees will now temporarily be housed in the new Emergency Transit Centre while their applications for resettlement are processed. IOM will provide medical support and cultural orientation classes to prepare them to meet the challenges and opportunities of daily life in resettlement countries.
Some 1,200 Palestinian refugees from Al Waleed camp are expected to transit through the Centre before being resettled in the United States.
The centre, which was officially opened last month, is the result of the Tripartite Agreement jointly signed by the Romanian government, UNHCR and IOM. It offers refugees access to a durable solution and participates in the international burden sharing. The opening and effective use of this centre illustrates the complementary of work between IOM and UNHCR.
There are an estimated 34,000 Palestinians in Iraq, of whom 23,000 have been registered by UNHCR in Baghdad. The Palestinian refugees came to Iraq in three main waves, in 1948, in 1967 and in 1991. Over the past three years, many more Palestinian families were forced to flee attacks and forced evictions inside Iraq.
For more information, please contact Redouane Saadi, at IOM Geneva, Tel: +4 1 22 717 9321, email rsaadi@iom.int
SRI LANKA - IOM Helps Displaced Fleeing Conflict in Sri Lanka - IOM is providing shelter, water and sanitation facilities, and logistical support to thousands of families fleeing hostilities between the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and Tamil Tiger rebels in the North and East of the country.
"IOM is working closely with the government and other agencies to meet the needs of people newly displaced by the fighting. We are using all our available resources and urgently need more funding to help these people, many of whom have lost everything," says IOM's head of emergency operations in Sri Lanka Giovanni Cassani.
IOM has already constructed emergency and semi-permanent shelters, toilets and washing facilities at several sites for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Vavuniya and Jaffna districts.
It is also improving water supply and waste water management systems at welfare centres, distributing essential sanitation supplies to displaced families, and providing transport for relief items donated by the government and other agencies in northern and eastern districts.
Over the past three months IOM has transported nearly 300 loads of relief supplies on behalf of government and other agencies to conflict-affected people. In response to a government request, it provided 28 trucks to transport medical equipment for a mobile hospital set up to treat IDPs in Trincomalee district.
IOM will also be providing technical and logistical assistance to improve the government's IDP registration process. The system, based on software developed by IOM to register tsunami-affected populations, includes the issuance of identity cards that will facilitate future post-conflict recovery and return initiatives.
Plans are also underway to construct temporary shelters for educational and recreational activities and to conduct hygiene promotion workshops in IDP shelter sites.
IOM's emergency operations in Sri Lanka are currently funded by Australia, the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID.)
For more information, please contact: Aurela Rincon, Tel. +94 11 5325 392 (Ext. 379), Email: arincon@iom.int or Passanna Gunasekera, Tel. +94 11 5325 300 (Ext. 341), Email: pgunasekera@iom.int
