“Thousands of Iraqis are fleeing the country every day in a “steady, silent exodus” and a spike in sectarian violence has stopped others from returning to their homeland, the U.N. refugee agency said on Friday.
More than 50,000 exiled Iraqis returned from neighbouring countries last year in the hope that calm might return after the country’s first post-war elections in January 2005.That number has fallen to 1,000 this year.
“Far more are leaving,” Ron Redmond, chief spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a news briefing in Geneva.” More