DAMASCUS, Syria, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- Dozens of Iraqi refugees protested Monday outside the U.N. High Commission for Refugees office in Damascus demanding that Syria not repatriate them.
They carried banners declaring "Syria and Iraq is one country" and urged Syrian President Bashar Assad against sending them back to their war-torn country because they fear for their safety.
The protests came amid reports that Damascus has started measures to send back what some officials estimated at 1.2 million Iraqi emigres, who left their homes to seek refuge in neighboring Syria. More than two million Iraqis have left their country since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, which has in the past two years unleashed a wave of sectarian killings and kidnappings.
Syrian officials have privately said they were concerned about "settlement measures" of Iraqi refugees outside their country.
A senior Syrian official told United Press International Monday his country "does not want to deport the Iraqi refugees, but is undergoing the organization of the entry and exit of Iraqis" to and from Syria.
The UNHCR has received hundreds of requests from Iraqi refugees seeking asylum in Syria.
