§ Mr. WorthingtonTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what reports he has received from the Overseas Development Administration team that recently visited the Iraq-Iran border on the number of refugees moving from Iraq to Iran and the reasons for their movement.
§ Mr. Baldry[holding answer 19 January 1995]: It is estimated that some 645,000 Iraqi refugees are currently in Iran, of whom 500,000 arrived before 1991, and the remainder following the Gulf war. The ODA team visited the area bordering the southern Iraq marshes and focused on the needs of recent refugees. There are around 5,000 in the camp at Himmet on the Iranian side of the border. At present, fewer than 50 persons a week are succeeding in crossing the border. Many more, possibly up to 250,000, may be unable to reach the border because of Iraqi military action. Informants told the team that many people are fleeing not just because of Saddam Hussein's brutal suppression of opposition in the south and destruction of the marshlands, but also increasingly because of economic hardship due to the loss of their livelihood and human rights abuses in the whole of central and southern Iraq.