GAZA (PIC)– PA refugees’ affairs’ minister Dr. Atef Odwan has urged the immediate and unconditional release of scores of Palestinian refugees kidnapped at the hands of Iraqi police forces in the middle of the Iraqi capital Baghdad Tuesday asserting that Palestinian refugees in Iraq are guests of the Iraqi people and should be dealt with in a brotherly manner and their dignity preserved.
In an exclusive interview with the PIC Tuesday Odwan charged that the abduction of 27 Palestinian refugees by the so-called “elite of the Iraqi interior ministry” was a crime of first degree as none could accept that Palestinian refugees in Iraq be persecuted for their “religious affiliation”.
He charged that the kidnappers were executing an American-Israeli plan to humiliate Palestinians in Iraq adding that the PA government was in continuous contact with all concerned parties to secure the release of those refugees and shield them against any possible attacks.
At dawn Tuesday a group of Iraqi elite police raided a building rented by the UNHCR to house Palestinian refugees forced out of their homes in Baghdad and relocated at Al-Nedal street forcing youths and elderly people to come out before handcuffing and leading them to unknown location.
Around 200 Palestinian refugees were murdered since the American occupation of Iraq started in 2003 in addition to tens of them arrested at the hands of the Iraqi and American forces with around 45 of them still under detention.
Sectarian violence spread across Iraq over the past few months amidst growing suspicions that the American occupation forces were nourishing the violence and sanctioning armed groups involved in it.
The UNRWA for its part appealed to Arab governments to receive 600 Palestinian refugees including pregnant women and children who fled violence in Iraq and are currently stranded at the Iraqi-Syrian borders.
The UN agency explained that the refugees were living in harsh conditions at the borders adding that they were exposed to grave human rights violations and tortured while in Iraq.
