
GENEVA — More than 30,000 Iraqis have moved to the United States under a resettlement program that began in 2007 while much smaller numbers have gone to other countries, the U.N. refugee agency said Friday.
The big United States intake, which began with the program in 2007, came after Washington had been heavily criticized for taking in too few Iraqi refugees.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has recommended to the participating countries the names of 82,500 Iraqis who should be moved, but so far only 33,117 have been able go to their new homelands, said spokesman Andrej Mahecic.
“Everyone is urgent,” said Mahecic, but he stressed that priority should be given to medical emergencies and to women and children at particular risk.
He said the refugees have been determined to be in need of international protection and that no other solution is possible.
The program started slowly in 2007, but “things are picking up,” said Mahecic.
One Shiite lawmaker in Baghdad questioned the U.N. figures, implying they had been inflated in order to make Iraq appear less stable than it really is.