Iraq's neighbors blocking refugees: rights group

GENEVA (Reuters) - Iraq's neighbors are making it harder and harder for Iraqis to flee across the border to escape violence, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday.

Jordan and Egypt, which are already home to over 800,000 refugees, have imposed new entry restrictions, while Saudi Arabia is building a $7 billion border barrier and Kuwait simply refuses all asylum requests, the U.S.-based advocacy group said.

"Jordan and Egypt have pretty much closed their doors to Iraqi refugees, while Syria is shutting out Palestinians trying to flee Iraq," Bill Frelick, the group's refugee policy director, said in a statement.

HRW, which was refused visas for Syria to investigate the situation there, urged a U.N. conference on the refugee crisis that began in Geneva on Tuesday to address the issue of asylum.

"The conference shouldn't only focus on assisting Iraqis who've managed to escape, but should seek to uphold the right to flee to safety," Frelick said.

The statement echoed similar concerns expressed by Amnesty International.

Amnesty said refugees had told its fact-finding team in Jordan last month that Iraqis had been forced home from Jordan, including six or seven Iraqi Shi'ites deported last December.

"In Iraq, their vehicle was reportedly forced to stop near (the western city of) Ramadi by (Sunni Muslim) insurgents, who then beheaded all but one of the occupants," Amnesty said.

Some 4 million Iraqis are already refugees, both inside and outside their homeland. The United Nations estimates that 50,000 a month are fleeing mounting sectarian violence.

Human Rights Watch said responsibility for those fleeing Iraq did not rest exclusively with its neighbors, and that the United States, which led the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and its main military ally Britain must help more.

"They undertook a war that has directly caused thousands of deaths, widespread fear and suffering, and forced displacement. This precipitated a sectarian conflict that has caused additional violence, persecution, and displacement on a massive scale," Frelick said.

Although Washington had "belatedly" agreed to take up to 7,000 Iraqi refugees, this was not adequate, HRW said, while Britain had not pledged to take any.