June 25,
2008: The UN estimates that there are 37
million refugees around the world. About 70 percent of those are domestic
refugees (still within their own country), while the rest have been driven to
adjacent, or even more distant, nations. About half these "foreign" refugees
are Iraqi or Afghan. Over two million Iraqi Sunni Arabs have fled since 2003,
as a result of the backlash against the Sunni Arab terror campaign inside Iraq
(to regain control of the country after Saddam was overthrown in 2003). Many of
these refugees have blood on their hands, having worked for Saddam brutal
police state. Some are returning, now that the Sunni Arab terrorism campaign
has been defeated.
Afghanistan
still has three million of its citizens living in Iranian and Pakistani refugee
camps. This is an aftereffect of the 1980s war with invading Russians. Over
five million Afghans fled, and many put down roots in Iran and Pakistan. But
after the U.S. crushed the Taliban in late 2001, most of refugees returned over
the next few years.
The other
big sources of refugees are Sudan (Arab Moslems expelling over two million
Black Moslems from disputed land) and Colombia (over three million people
displaced by leftist drug gang violence.)
Western
nations, particularly the United States, provide most of the money to feed and
care for these refugees.