AMMAN - Around 500,000 Iraqis now live in neighbouring Jordan after fleeing the violence at home, according to the results of a survey released on Tuesday by Norway’s independent Fafo research foundation. ‘While figures as high as one million, or about 16 percent of the total population, have been aired, this study concludes that there are between 450,000-500,000 Iraqis in Jordan as of May 2007,’ said Fafo deputy managing director Jon Pedersen.The figure in the survey commissioned by Jordan is based on ‘immigration statistics, the number of phone subscribers as well as a household survey of Iraqis and non-Iraqis,’ Pedersen told a news conference. According to the UN High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR), 4.2 million Iraqis have fled their country since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The UNHCR, which called this the biggest wave of displacement in the Middle East since 1948, estimates that some 1.4 million Iraqis have found refuge in Syria and 750,000 in Jordan.
But last week, a top Iraqi military officer said around 46,000 Iraqis who had fled abroad to escape the violence returned in October on the back of improving security in the war-ravaged country.
Pedersen said the survey, carried out in cooperation with Jordan’s department of statistics, showed that the ‘highest volume of movement of the Iraqi population took place in 2004 and 2005.’ According to the survey, ‘the majority of the Iraqi community in Jordan resides in Amman and had originally come from Baghdad. One in every five Iraqis have concrete plans to emigrate to a third country.’
Jordan has said the refugee influx is costing it around one billion dollars each year.