Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
Refugee Crisis
Aired March 19, 2003 - 09:20 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: It's coming up on nightfall right now. As we continue to look at the situation with war looming right now, every time we see a conflict like these, Paula, we talk about refugees and the millions of people who could be displaced.
Right now, we're told that thousands of Iraqi Kurds now streaming from the cities toward the mountains and the border with Turkey. This is the same area that Saddam Hussein killed thousands of Kurds with chemical weapons 15 years ago this past weekend. And after the 1991 Gulf War, a million of them fled to Turkey, escaping the campaign of reprisals from Baghdad.
It's exactly the kind of refugee crisis that relief organizations now are worried about that may come very soon.
Sandra Nelson is with Mercy Corps, a nongovernment organization, known as an NGO in Kuwait. She joins us here live to talk some more about it.
How are you right now arriving at some or the sort of estimate or number what you might be facing?
SANDRA NELSON, MERCY CORPS: Right now, the numbers that we're looking at, we're using the planning numbers that the International Organization of Migration and the UNHR put forward, which is about three million internally displaced people in Iraq, and about 600,000 refugees that will be coming outside of Iraq to neighboring countries.
HEMMER: Now how are you able to find out which neighboring countries may be affected? Iran is to the east, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan, Syria to the west and northwest. Is there anyway to pinpoint which country might have the most influx?
NELSON: Well, what we're looking at now is Iraq has a very urban-based population. And so in terms of the fighting, we anticipate that Baghdad is going to have prolonged fighting, so we'll see a large flow of refugees and internally displaced people there, as well as from Basara.
So we're estimating the south and in the central areas, they'll be very hard hit. We're expecting about two million internally displaced people there. That will put them along the Jordanian border, the Kuwaiti border, and also we're looking at over a quarter of a million people along the Irani border.
HEMMER: That sounds like an extremely high number. Is it higher than anticipated? NELSON: Well, the numbers have been shifting. And again, these are planning numbers. We don't quite know what to expect, not knowing how the military campaign will proceed.
That's the big unknown. So what we're planning for is the worst.
HEMMER: How about this. There are rumors that Saddam Hussein may actually take the refugees and force them out to the south to slow or impede the advance of the U.S. military. If you were to encounter that, how would you handle it?
NELSON: Well, one of the bit concerns we have is exactly that, that he will go against his own population, and the biggest concern we have is chemical and biological warfare. If he unleashes those weapons and they affect his own population, the international NGO community is not prepared to deal with that crisis. We don't have the chemical suits. We don't have the equipment and the medicines to deal with it. We've been asking the U.S. military what their plans are and they're ability is to deal with this if it happens.
HEMMER: And the answers are?
NELSON: The answers haven't been forthcoming. We don't know. And so at this point, some of our biggest concerns are about the population.
HEMMER: Why can't you get answers? And what point will the come?
NELSON: We've been asking, we've been working with them for months, and there is still a lot of information outstanding about not just about chemical warfare and how we'll respond to that, or the how the military can respond to that, but also the what anticipated flow and numbers are of refugees.
HEMMER: Sandra Nelson, best of luck, for Mercy Corps, thanks for sharing with us.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired March 19, 2003 - 09:20 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: It's coming up on nightfall right now. As we continue to look at the situation with war looming right now, every time we see a conflict like these, Paula, we talk about refugees and the millions of people who could be displaced.
Right now, we're told that thousands of Iraqi Kurds now streaming from the cities toward the mountains and the border with Turkey. This is the same area that Saddam Hussein killed thousands of Kurds with chemical weapons 15 years ago this past weekend. And after the 1991 Gulf War, a million of them fled to Turkey, escaping the campaign of reprisals from Baghdad.
It's exactly the kind of refugee crisis that relief organizations now are worried about that may come very soon.
Sandra Nelson is with Mercy Corps, a nongovernment organization, known as an NGO in Kuwait. She joins us here live to talk some more about it.
How are you right now arriving at some or the sort of estimate or number what you might be facing?
SANDRA NELSON, MERCY CORPS: Right now, the numbers that we're looking at, we're using the planning numbers that the International Organization of Migration and the UNHR put forward, which is about three million internally displaced people in Iraq, and about 600,000 refugees that will be coming outside of Iraq to neighboring countries.
HEMMER: Now how are you able to find out which neighboring countries may be affected? Iran is to the east, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan, Syria to the west and northwest. Is there anyway to pinpoint which country might have the most influx?
NELSON: Well, what we're looking at now is Iraq has a very urban-based population. And so in terms of the fighting, we anticipate that Baghdad is going to have prolonged fighting, so we'll see a large flow of refugees and internally displaced people there, as well as from Basara.
So we're estimating the south and in the central areas, they'll be very hard hit. We're expecting about two million internally displaced people there. That will put them along the Jordanian border, the Kuwaiti border, and also we're looking at over a quarter of a million people along the Irani border.
HEMMER: That sounds like an extremely high number. Is it higher than anticipated? NELSON: Well, the numbers have been shifting. And again, these are planning numbers. We don't quite know what to expect, not knowing how the military campaign will proceed.
That's the big unknown. So what we're planning for is the worst.
HEMMER: How about this. There are rumors that Saddam Hussein may actually take the refugees and force them out to the south to slow or impede the advance of the U.S. military. If you were to encounter that, how would you handle it?
NELSON: Well, one of the bit concerns we have is exactly that, that he will go against his own population, and the biggest concern we have is chemical and biological warfare. If he unleashes those weapons and they affect his own population, the international NGO community is not prepared to deal with that crisis. We don't have the chemical suits. We don't have the equipment and the medicines to deal with it. We've been asking the U.S. military what their plans are and they're ability is to deal with this if it happens.
HEMMER: And the answers are?
NELSON: The answers haven't been forthcoming. We don't know. And so at this point, some of our biggest concerns are about the population.
HEMMER: Why can't you get answers? And what point will the come?
NELSON: We've been asking, we've been working with them for months, and there is still a lot of information outstanding about not just about chemical warfare and how we'll respond to that, or the how the military can respond to that, but also the what anticipated flow and numbers are of refugees.
HEMMER: Sandra Nelson, best of luck, for Mercy Corps, thanks for sharing with us.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
