Iraqi refugees can't find peace Hundreds of thousands spread across Mideast, straining host countries

QAISAR AHMED, Los Angeles Times

...The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees put it more starkly in a recent assessment: "Iraq is hemorrhaging. The humanitarian crisis which the international community had feared is now unfolding." Including those who have fled their homes but remained inside the country, nearly 10 percent of Iraq's prewar population of 26 million has been displaced (...) Consider the fate of Laith Youssef, a shopkeeper who also ended up in Amman. An Iraqi gang threatened to kidnap his three children if he did not pay $40,000. Weeks later, a grenade exploded outside his shop, speckling his leg with shrapnel. Then he was jailed for 15 days for offending the Shiite militia known as the Mahdi Army. While he was imprisoned, his wife was attacked for not wearing strict Islamic dress in public. Mr. Youssef and his family fled to Jordan, but even here, without the bombs and beheadings, life is tough...

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