Iceland, Sweden to take in Iraq's Palestinian refugees

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

GENEVA (AFP) — Palestinian refugees stranded for two years in desperate conditions on the Iraq-Syria border will be resettled in Iceland and Sweden in the coming weeks, the United Nations refugee agency said Tuesday.

More than two dozen vulnerable Palestinians from the Al Waleed camp will be leaving for Iceland while another group of 155 refugees from the Al Tanf camp are bound for Sweden, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Ron Redmond told journalists.

Redmond said that an estimated 2,300 Palestinians were living in camps along the border amid "dire" health conditions, unable to return to Iraq or cross into neighbouring countries.

Human rights group Amnesty International warned last year that thousands of Palestinian refugees had been...