Chris Morris
12/13/2006
BBC

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On the desert border between Syria and Iraq, a group of tents clings to the shifting sands. This is a desolate place at the best of times.

Now it has become an unwanted home to more than 300 Palestinian refugees. They fled from violence in Baghdad seven months ago, only to get stuck in no-man's land.

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The United Nations is providing basic food and shelter, and the Syrians grant temporary access to urgent medical cases. But it is a bleak situation.

And while the Palestinians say they would like to go to Europe or Canada, there is hardly a queue of countries willing to help.

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But as sad as it is, the dusty Palestinian camp is just a small statistic - part of a mass movement of people, an exodus from Iraq.

Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 as many as two million civilians searching for sanctuary have fled into neighbouring countries like Syria, Jordan and Iran.

They are ill-equipped to cope. The pressure group Refugees International calls it the fastest growing humanitarian crisis in the world.

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The numbers are staggering - at least three quarters of a million Iraqis have fled to Syria alone. And every month the rate of arrival is higher than it has been before.

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The latest arrivals from Iraq register at the Damascus office of the UN refugee agency. Tens of thousands need urgent financial or medical assistance, or trauma counselling.
 
A growing number of Iraqis are in the Syrian capital

But who is prepared to pay to help them?

"The funds we have at the moment are not sufficient," says Laurens Jolles. "We are asking for more, we're approaching individual countries to contribute. This is quite a small office and in no way capable of dealing with the numbers that are here."

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Some see the situation as a choice between stable authoritarianism in Syria, and dangerous, frightening chaos and violence in Iraq.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have already voted with their feet.