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— Iceland and Sweden will take in nearly 200 Palestinian refugees stranded in makeshift desert camps on Iraq's border with Syria.
The Palestinian community in Iraq has become a target for persecution largely because others thought they were favored under late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's regime.
Over two dozen Palestinians will leave the Al Waleed refugee camp in the next few weeks for Iceland, Ron Redmond, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said Tuesday. Some of the women and children in the group have "urgent medical needs," he added.
Another 155 Palestinian refugees from the Al Tanf refugee camp will be resettled in Sweden, he said.
The poorly supplied camps house around 2,300 Palestinians who fled violence in Iraq and have been unable to return or to enter neighboring countries, Redmond said, describing the living conditions there as "desperate."
The U.N. refugee agency is trying to find other countries to resettle the remaining Palestinian refugees.
