June 21, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-us-Sani 16, 1429

UNITED NATIONS, June 20: India, Malaysia, Thailand, China and Bangladesh have been identified as among the worst violators of refugees’ rights in a global survey released ahead of the World Refugees Day, observed on Friday.

They joined Iraq, Kenya, Russia, Sudan and Europe as the “10 worst places for refugees” last year, according to the World Refugee Survey 2008 released by the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI).

India was placed in the category because of its “radically discriminatory treatment of refugees”, said Merrill Smith, USCRI’s director for international planning and analysis.

The list of “worst places for refugees” was based on regions or countries turning refugees away to face further persecution, violence and possibly death, or letting them enter a country and subjecting them to deprivation and stultifying limbo, the USCRI said.

“We’ve tried to call attention to these countries because they have been egregious in their treatment of refugees,” USCRI president Lavinia Limon said.

“Some of them have forced refugees back into dangerous situations, some of them have ‘warehoused’ refugees in camps for decades, and some of them have done their best to make sure refugees never enter their territory. Some of them have done all of the above,” she said.

According to another report, half a million Iraqis fled their embattled country in 2007, the third consecutive year more Iraqis were displaced than any other nationality, a survey said.

As before, most went to neighbouring Syria, and some fanned out into other neighbouring countries, according to the survey. It said the United States accepted only a few — just over half the 3,000 it had promised to resettle by the end of September.

The report said office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees had referred the names of 10,000 Iraqis for resettlement. It said the Iraqi exodus “from the violence and instability of their homeland” constituted “the largest refugee crisis of 2007”.

“While the Bush administration and the United Kingdom are busy trying to win the war, they have provided no leadership towards ensuring the rights and well-being of the victims of this war,” the report said.

“Europe, which for the most part warned of the dire humanitarian consequences of the war, has also done nothing to help the people they were so concerned about.”

According to Ben Cardin, a member of the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, the survey “shows the United States still has far to go to support the rights of refugees worldwide”.

“The United States has a moral obligation and a security interest in trying to alleviate the suffering of Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons, particularly those who risked so much over the past few years to help our military and diplomatic efforts in their country,” he remarked.

The annual study also showed the total number of refugees growing to 14 million at the end of 2007, the largest figure since 2001.

Fuelling the growth again were Iraqi refugees, with more than 550,000 fleeing their country. In all, over two million refugees from the militancy-hit nation were waiting for an end to violence.