More than 300 refugees trickled across Iraq's borders, but there was no exodus as war broke out. The first arrivals included Sudanese families who moved to Baghdad with dreams of riches only to head home a decade later penniless and disillusioned.
Officials acknowledged that preliminary work had gone slowly at Jordan's border. They blamed the heavy winds and a funding shortfall. Peter Kessler, spokesman for the UN refugee agency, said only US$21 million of a requested US$60 million had been donated for initial preparations.
In neighboring Syria, there was no sign of Iraqis fleeing on the first day of US-led strikes against their country. A border crossing opened in 1997, the Tanef crossing some 300km northeast of Damascus, was almost empty save for a few drivers bringing in Yemeni and Jordanian students from Iraq.
PHOTO: AP
Iraqi opposition figures had said earlier that Iraq was not allowing Iraqis to leave. But Customs officials at Tanef said the crossing was open to Iraqis but that none had come. Tanef, a major passageway for Syrian-Iraqi trade under the UN oil-for-food program, is a 600km drive from Baghdad.
In all, about 350 Africans -- from Sudan, Somalia, Chad and Mali -- had crossed the Iraqi border and were making their way to the camp 50km away, according to David John, an operations officer with the IOM. The camp could eventually hold 5,000 people, he said.
Several kilometers farther away from the border, workers were putting up tents in a similar camp designed for Iraqi refugees. Douglas Osmond, a senior logistics officer for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said it would soon be able to hold 20,000 people.
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