 Syria has agreed to take a group of 181 Palestinian refugees currently stranded on the border between Iraq and Jordan, the UN refugee agency said Tuesday. The Palestinian refugees fled violence in Baghdad last month and have been camping out on the border since Jordan blocked their entry. "At the end of last week we learned that the government of Syria has agreed to receive the group of 181 Palestinian refugees stranded at the Iraq-Jordanian border," said William Spindler, a spokesman for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). | Birds of a feather, after all. |
Spindler told journalists that Syria's move had sparked the departure of another 50 Palestinians from Baghdad. However, they were stopped on the Iraqi side of the border with Jordan and the men in the group not allowed to join the original 181 refugees currently camping in no-man's land.| Syria still digging the trenches to contain all the spittle... |
"We have not been informed that other Palestinians will be allowed into Syria," Spindler said. "We are in contact with other countries. But so far we have not been able to find any other countries that will take Palestinians," he added. Jordan, which is already home to around 1.7 million Palestinians, has rejected criticism from human rights groups, saying it cannot cope with more refugees. |