Iraqi Aid Group: 25,000 Refugees Return

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More than 25,000 Iraqis who fled to Syria have returned, the Iraqi Red Crescent said, offering an estimate of refugee returns radically lower than one given by an Iraqi government eager to highlight recent declines in violence.

An Iraqi refugees that has just returned from Syria unload their luggage from a bus in Baghdad,...

An Iraqi refugees that has just returned from Syria unload their luggage from a bus in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2007. About 20 buses carrying hundreds of Iraqi refugees returned to Baghdad from Syria late Wednesday, a move the government hailed as a sign of growing public confidence that Iraq was finally on the road to stability. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

In a separate report Tuesday, a human rights group said Iraqis who sought refuge in Lebanon are being coerced into returning home.

The Red Crescent report, issued for the period beginning Sept. 15 and ending Nov. 30, said most of the estimated 25,000 to 28,000 refugees made the trip home in September and October, and the numbers tapered off during November.

Officials in Iraq and Syria have said more than 46,000 refugees returned in October and claimed the flow has continued unabated.

Echoing concerns by U.S. and U.N. officials that many would find their homes occupied by others, the report said many of those who came from Syria instead of returning to their own towns and neighborhoods joined the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis displaced within their homeland.

The report said the overwhelming majority of the refugees at least 19,000 returned to Baghdad, which has seen a dramatic turnaround in recent months, due largely to the influx of American troops to the capital, the freeze in activities from the feared Mahdi Army Shiite militia, and the U.S. push to enlist local Sunnis to help in the fight against al-Qaida.

The Red Crescent said many of the Iraqis returned to three neighborhoods largely reclaimed from al-Qaida in Iraq's control: Amariyah, Azamiyah and Dora. But, the organization warned, many of those who returned did so at least in part because their money ran out in Syria.

"The high cost of living and rented apartments and the limited employment opportunities contributed to lack of stability of Iraqi families and increased their passion to return to their country," said the report, which drew its findings from transportation companies, and government departments and ministries.

Eager to take credit for the decline in violence, Iraq's government is encouraging refugees to return from Syria, airing commercials on state television directed at the exiles, providing armored convoys of buses from Syria and paying stipends to help with relocation costs.