Al Maliki calls for UN to help Iraqis leave Syria

Baghdad: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki called on the United Nations on Friday to intervene to provide safe passage for Iraqis escaping escalating violence in Syria and return to their home country.

Al Maliki’s call came as Baghdad officials estimated the number of Iraqis remaining in Syria at between 100,000 and 200,000, but warning that land transport between the two countries was unsafe.

“We call on the United Nations for urgent intervention and to cooperate with Syrian authorities to protect Iraqis and help them and facilitate their return to Iraq,” the Iraqi premier said in a statement posted on his website.

He said Iraqis in Syria were “facing killing and looting for money and property from criminal gangs which breach all human values, and look like the terrorist groups that harmed Iraqis security in recent years”.

He also said those who opposed the government or supported opponents of the post-2003 regime in Iraq would be forgiven, so long as they had no blood on their hands.

Iraq has appealed for its citizens to return home from Syria in the face of worsening violence there, but government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said on Friday that moving Iraqis by land in Syria was “not safe”.

Dabbagh estimated on Thursday that around 100,000 to 200,000 Iraqis still remained inside Syria. He said around 1,000 Iraqis had returned to the country by plane from Syria, and a further 1,500 were waiting at Damascus airport.