Increased Support Urged for Leading Host Countries Syria and Jordan

U.N. refugee officials on Friday accused donor countries of neglecting the plight of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Iraq flooding into neighboring Syria and Jordan.

"It is unconscionable that generous host countries be left on their own to deal with such a huge crisis," Ron Redmond, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, told reporters in Geneva.

In April, the United States and other Western countries pledged financial help for Iraqis fleeing violence and chaos. But even as the number of refugees in Syria and Jordan swells to more than 2 million, aid has been minimal. So far, donations total $70 million, with an additional $10 million in pledges. But hundreds of millions of dollars are needed to cope with the crisis, U.N. officials said.

"The two countries caring for the biggest proportion of Iraqi refugees -- Syria and Jordan -- have still received next to nothing in bilateral help from the world community," Redmond said. "The growing refugee population and the communities that host them are facing enormous hardships that will only get worse if the international community doesn't put its money where its mouth is."

Sweden, which has provided safe haven to more Iraqi refugees than the United States and other European countries, announced Friday that it would make it more difficult for Iraqis to seek asylum and would deport by force any denied refuge.

Sweden has provided shelter to more than 18,000 Iraqis since 2006. In contrast, the United States has given refuge to fewer than 800 Iraqis since 2003, according to State Department figures.

"Sweden used to be positively unique. Now they've joined the rest of the gang," Bjarte Vandvik, secretary general of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, told the Associated Press.

About 4 million Iraqis have been displaced inside and outside Iraq. Syria continued to be the biggest host of Iraqi refugees, receiving an estimated 30,000 a month. The United States accepted 63 Iraqi refugees last month, and just 36 in the first five months of this year, according to the State Department.

Syria, which allows Iraqi children to attend free public schools, does not have enough space for all of them. Only 32,000 of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children in Syria are actually in school, Redmond said.

"A whole generation of Iraqi children is in danger of missing out on an education," Redmond said.

Meanwhile in Iraq, the violence continued.

[The U.S. military on Saturday announced the deaths of six American service members in combat operations in Iraq, most of them in the Baghdad area, the Associated Press reported.

On Friday, two soldiers died when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol in east Baghdad, and a U.S. soldier and an Iraqi interpreter were killed when an armor-piercing weapon known as an explosively formed projectile detonated near their patrol in southeastern Baghdad, the military said.

In addition, three service members were killed Thursday -- two Marines in western Anbar province and a soldier in Baghdad, the command said.]

In the southern town of Samawah, clashes erupted late Thursday between police and the Mahdi Army, the militia of influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Six people were killed and 11 were wounded, police said.

In the northern town of Samarra, a roadside bomb killed four policemen and injured three civilians, said Capt. Zuhair al-Badri, a police official.

In the southern town of Hilla, mortar fire struck near a U.S. compound. When Iraqi police and army units arrived at the scene, a roadside bomb detonated, killing four Iraqi soldiers and injuring two, said Capt. Muthana Ahmed of the Babil provincial police.

In Hawija, about 30 miles southwest of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, gunmen shot and killed an Iraqi soldier. Another group of gunmen in a civilian car opened fire on a soldier in central Kirkuk, killing him instantly, police said.

Special correspondents Naseer Nouri and Saad al-Izzi in Baghdad and Saad Sarhan in Najaf and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report

Washington Post