“No Iraqi will be expelled from Syria,” Khaled told AFP at the Baghdad Palm Tree restaurant in the Damascus suburb of Jaramana where he sought refuge along with many of his countrymen.

The restaurant is a safe haven for Iraqis who chat and sip coffee together, a place where they can forget the religious and ethnic bloodshed that is tearing their homeland apart. Or discuss it.

Mohammed, the owner of the restaurant, is an Iraqi Sunni Muslim who employs about a dozen of his compatriots — of all religions. Among them is Sattar, a former army officer who hopes to “return home as soon as possible.”

Another is Alaa, a Christian, who prefers to emigrate to Australia, while Mohammed himself wishes that “Syria would negotiate with Western countries” to let Iraqi refugees emigrate.

Between 800,000 and one million refugees are thought to have fled to Syria since the rapid deterioration of the security situation in Iraq following the US-led invasion in 2003.

On February 19, a representative for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that Damascus had relaxed measures introduced in January that limited the stay of Iraqi refugees to just two weeks.

Previously, the authorities had demanded that refugees leave the country for a month once their residency permits expired, and only after that period could they return and reapply.

Now, Iraqis fleeing the violence back home can stay for a month before applying for a three-month permit which can then be renewed by leaving Syria and returning again as early as the same day.

During a visit to Damascus earlier this month, UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres urged “a massive mobilisation of support from the international community” for countries such as Syria and Jordan which are bearing a “heavy burden.”

Social problems

If the massive influx of Iraqi refugees into Syria injected new blood into the country’s fragile economy, it has also triggered social problems and sharp increases in prices.

The monthly rent of an average apartment in Jaramana, which was about 100 dollars in 2003, has since doubled to 200 dollars and in some cases tripled to 300 dollars — sums which most Syrians are unable to afford.

The situation has created social problems in some neighbourhoods, with overcrowding in schools and soaring cases of theft and prostitution.

Most of the Iraqi refugees in Syria are in the capital and its surrounding areas such as Jaramana — a mixed Christian-Druze suburb where restaurants and cafes have mushroomed since the 2003 Iraq war.

Next to cafes and restaurants in Jaramana bearing Syrian names such as Ashur, Sweida and Hammurabi, others have sprung up that are clearly Iraqi — Baghdad, Furat and Kaldan.

The restaurants have become daily meeting places for Iraqi refugees wanting to discuss the latest violence gripping their country or seeking to share information about ways of returning home, emigrating or staying in Syria.

Khaled, a waiter at the Baghdad Palm Tree, said he planned to stay in Syria which he felt was just like home.

But most of the other waiters and customers were just waiting for the day when they could either return home or emigrate.

Sabah Al Marssumi, a Sunni father of two who has been in Damascus since 2005, said “we fled Iraq after my father was threatened by armed militias.”

“If I go back there, I will automatically be liquidated by the pro-Iranian death squads,” said the unemployed dentist whose father was head of the Dar Al Hikma cultural centre in Baghdad.

In the Hajer internet cafe, businessman Bassam said that he too had fled to Syria for security reasons.

“In Iraq, the militias impose taxes under the pretext that they are fighting the American army,” he said.

Of the two million Iraqis said to have fled their home country since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime, around half of them have sought refuge in Syria. Around 750,000 are estimated to be in neighbouring Jordan.

While some Iraqis may plan to stay in Syria, many of them look upon Damascus as a staging post, a stepping stone to a new and safe life in Europe, the United States or Australia.

On Thursday Washington said it would send a high-ranking official to Syria for the first time in two years in the coming weeks as part of a regional tour dealing with “humanitarian issues related to Iraqi refugees.”

Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey will also visit Jordan, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.