Iraqi refugees in Egypt get a free flight to a very uncertain future:
BAGHDAD (AP) _ Several hundred Iraqi refugees flew home from Egypt on Monday on the Iraqi prime minister’s plane, the first government-organized flight aimed at accelerating the return of Iraqis now that violence has waned.
Many of those returning on the free flight, however, [...]

Iraqi Voices in Cairo is a collection of accounts of Iraq refugees’ lives in Egypt, where over 150,000 reside with few opportunities to remake their lives:

Approximately 150,000 refugees from Iraq are trapped in Cairo, Egypt, with little hope of integration and no home to return to. We are an association of reporters and researchers working [...]

Boston Review - No Going Back:
The American occupation has been more disastrous than the Mongols’ sack of Baghdad in the 13th century. Iraq’s human capital has fled, its intellectuals and professionals, the educated, the moneyed classes, the political elite. They will not return. And the government is nonexistent at best. After finally succumbing to Iraqi [...]

Click on the logo above to learn more about a campaign to get the White House to do more to help Iraqi refugees, the fastest growing refugee crisis worldwide. Refugees International is asking people to call the White House to ask them to increase the aid to Iraqi refugees to $290 million. Remember that, as [...]

I haven’t had time to read it yet, but the ICG has just published a very interesting-looking report on Egypt’s Sinai question in light of the three bombings that have taken place there in the past three years and the subsequent indiscriminate crackdown on the Bedouin population:
Thus, beneath the terrorism problem is a more serious [...]

Activists are holding a candle light vigil, Friday 29 December, 6pm, in front of the UNHCR office in Mohandessin, to mark the first the anniversary of the massacre of Sudanese refugees on the hands of the Egyptian Interior Ministry’s Central Security Forces.

Blogger Nora Younis witnessed the atrocity last year, and wrote her testimony here…

A friend writes:
A new Pentagon report out yesterday describes the continuing disaster in Iraq. One item was on refugee flows. It says that:
“The numbers of refugees fleeing the violence are immense: 700,000 have fled to Jordan; 600,000 to Syria; 100,000 to Egypt; 40,000 to Lebanon, and 54,000 to Iran. Over 3,000 refugees per day are [...]

One of the little devices that helps me get through the month is ticking up how many stories in the Atlantic Monthly annoy me. When I hit a certain number (yet to be determined), I’m going to cancel my subscription.
This piece scored a tick.
Headlined “Carriers of conflict” it outlines one of the unpleasant side effects [...]

From Fustat:
During July and August, the Czech republic has recieved 300 egyptian asylym seekers, this is in sharp contrast to January when they recieved one.
The authorities thinks it´s the neighbour Italy that they wan´t to reach. The asylum laws in the Czech republic is somewhat milder than in Italy. Most of the Egyptians claim to [...]

A neat story:
TENERIFE, Canary Islands — It rains little on this island. There are no natural rivers, and the air is full of the dry heat of the nearby Sahara.
But in a ravine on the island’s northern tip, tree limbs drip with water and a tropical forest flourishes, sustained almost entirely by condensation from the [...]

A day or two before we left Morocco, I went to say goodbye to Paulin Kuanzambi, an Angolan refugee in Morocco who now works with AFVIC (Amis et Familles des Victimes de l’Immigration Clandestine, “Friends and Families of Victims of Clandestine Migration”). Paulin had been great help to me in some stories I did for [...]

11 Egyptian students from Mansoura University on an exchange program to Montana have disappeared:
(AP) WASHINGTON Eleven Egyptian students who arrived in the United States last month are being sought by authorities after failing to turn up for an exchange program at Montana State University.
The Egyptian men were among a group of 17 students who [...]

Number of Lebanese refugees caused by war: at least 700,000
Lebanon’s population: 3,500,000
So that’s a fifth of the population that was made into refugees.

Sudanese refugess may not be having the best times of their lives in Cairo, encountering state and society’s racism on occasions, still some activities are organized to help relief work.
Here is another slideshow by Nasser of a Sudanese refugees’ summer school in Ramsis, Cairo, pix taken on 29/06/2006

Today is World Refugee Day. I recently received an email announcing this forum for Sudanese refugees in Egypt and elsewhere. Good luck to them, and I hope the debate on the recent handling of last year’s sit-in continues there.
Meanwhile, in Rabat, Ursula went to a sit-in in front of UNHCR’s office this morning. Here is [...]

The Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Center at the AUC has released its report on what happened during three-month sit-in of Sudanese refugees in Cairo’s Mohandiseen district, which ended bloodily in late December. The Egyptian government is condemned for the violence, and the irresponsibility of some of the protest leaders (who nurtured unrealistic expectations of [...]

Now that’s what I call irresponsible journalism:
Even in Islamic countries not strictly run by Sharia law, pressures mount on local Christians to leave the homes they’ve known for centuries. Iraq’s Christian sects, among the oldest Christian communities anywhere in the world, have been directly targeted by terrorist bombs, and Christians are now high on the [...]

Megan Stack of the LA Times has a very nice story on the Shia of Bahrain, or Ajam, and their struggle for political recognition. It focuses on one family that has returned from exile in Canada and tries to find its footing in the midst of promises of reform. As always with Megan, it is [...]

I’m still on holiday (South Africa) but I thought this comment from Joe Vess deserved some highlighting:
I know Issandr’s not here, but I thought the big story from Egypt this week should be mentioned. Eric Reeves has an article on his website where he reports that the SPLM has recorded 265 Sudanese refugees murdered by [...]

It’s an uncomfortable fact of life for Muslims that the most prominent terrorists of our times commit murder in the name of their religion. That is something that has caused a fair amount of soul searching in the Islamic world, even if it is sometimes muddied by conflicting thoughts on other problems that preoccupy Muslims [...]