An international conference on the plight of Iraqis displaced in the years since the U.S. invasion says there is little hope at the end of the tunnel for millions of Iraqi refugees.
The conference organized by the Ministry of Immigration and attended by U.N. Refugee Agency estimated that about five million Iraqis are now refugees out of a population of more than 25 million.
Conference experts said more than 1 million Iraqis had fled the country in the four decades of the rule of former leader Saddam Hussein and his Baath party.
But the exodus surged in the violent years that followed the U.S. invasion of 2003.
Some experts described Iraq as "a nation on the move" with millions of Iraqis relocated by force.
They spoke of armies of internally displaced Iraqis – refugees in their own country – and highlighted the plight of millions who opted to leave to neighboring states.
The return of relative calm to violent areas like Baghdad for example was good news, the experts said.
But they added the government was doing almost nothing to help those willing to return.
When families escape a neighborhood, their property is not protected.
Many of those returning find their houses occupied by other families or turned into offices or barracks by rival militias.
A government decision calling on the security forces to compel individuals and political factions to evacuate property not belonging to them remains ink on paper.
The conferees found that despite public claims to the contrary the government has failed to honor commitments to help Iraqi refugees inside and outside Iraq.
The government had allocated nearly $2 billion for refugees but experts charged there was no sign that the money had reached the beneficiaries.
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