Nearly a third of 1.5 million Iraqi refugees in Syria have university degrees
December 20, 2007 8:31 am Iraq
Some Iraqi refugees, seen here in Syria, are highly educated. (Hannah Allam/MCT)
CAIRO, Egypt — One in five Iraqi refugees in Syria has been tortured or suffered from other violence, and more than a third fled their homeland between July and October, at the height of the U.S. troop buildup that was intended to quell sectarian violence in Baghdad, preliminary data from a new United Nations study show.
The survey also found that the refugee population is highly educated — nearly a third have university degrees, including master’s and doctorates — and that many refugees are only weeks away from exhausting their savings.
The survey, which the IPSOS market research firm conducted in October and November, is the most comprehensive study to date of the 1.5 million Iraqis who’ve sought safety in Syria from the sectarian violence at home. The results are based on interviews with 754 refugees, who were asked detailed questions that ranged from whether they’d been hit by grenades to how they treat their children’s illnesses. Full results are expected in early January.