UK TimesOnline: Baghdad is being born again in exile (Syria)

[sabra]

http://timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1572629.ece

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More than two million Iraqis live in exile in Syria and Jordan. The war has triggered the largest regional refugee crisis since Palestinians fled their homes in 1948 and 1967, with at least 20,000 acrossing into Syria every months, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Across the border, Baghdad is being born again in exile. An entire university has sprung up on the edge of Damascus, run by an exiled Sunni dean from Basra, staffed by Iraqi professors and catering mainly to Iraqi students fleeing campus sectarianism at home. And if Ms Gummar’s play leaves homesick Iraqis hungering for a taste of home, they can dine in their favourite restaurants from Baghdad and Fallujah, reopened in exile by patrons who fled Iraq.

Syria is one of the few countries to open its doors to so many refugees from the war on its doorstep, with an estimated 1.3 million Iraqis sheltering here. But this is a hidden refugee crisis. There are no tent cities or camps, and officially the Iraqis are not even refugees — Syria did not sign up to the UN refugee charter, wary of the lesson learnt when Jordan was swamped by Palestinians.

Instead, the Iraqis live in cramped and often squalid conditions, two or three families to a tiny apartment in a city where living space is at a premium and rents are rising. With its own unemployment topping 20 per cent, Syria has barred its “guests” from working, so they have to live off savings or send their children out to find manual jobs, where they attract less attention than adults and provide cheap labour.