Four years into the war in Iraq, world governments and aid agencies are trying to deal with a refugee crisis that was forecast before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

In early 2003, representatives of international aid agencies warned that invading Iraq would lead to “a humanitarian crisis and increase civilian suffering, in addition to fueling regional instability,” as the British Overseas Aid Group predicted. A Catholic Relief Services (CRS) regional director told a congressional hearing to expect 900,000 Iraqis to flee the country.

The flow of refugees anticipated by aid agencies didn’t develop, at least not in the beginning. But the number of fleeing Iraqis gradually increased, and today an estimated 2 million Iraqis have sought refuge outside their country. Of those, more than 600,000 are Christians and other minorities. Another 1.7 million Iraqis are thought to be “internally displaced,” or forced from their homes but still living in Iraq.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said in an April 11 report that although the security situation in Iraq has improved in some instances the ongoing conflict “is inflicting immense suffering on the entire population.” The Iraqi Red Crescent Society, the local affiliate of the Red Cross, said about 600,000 people have left the country since February 2006 — when the Shiite shrine in Samarra was bombed, starting a continuos wave of sectarian violence.

It took until February 2007 for the Bush administration and the United Nations to develop a plan to resettle a portion of those refugees and provide assistance to the hundreds of thousands of people who are overwhelming public services in the countries to which they have fled.

Agencies such as CRS, the U.S. bishops’ overseas relief and development agency, and Caritas Internationalis, an international network of Catholic relief, development and social service agencies, have been putting together proposals for U.S. funding announced in February, under which they would expand their assistance to Iraqis living in Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan.

Jack Connolly, CRS’ senior regional representative for the Middle East, said the impact is huge on the neighboring countries where Iraqis have settled temporarily. For example, Syria, with a population of about 18 million, has had to quickly absorb about 1 million Iraqis, and Jordan, which has a population of less than 6 million, has taken in 700,000 to 800,000 Iraqis.

Displaced Iraqis who have fled are primarily living in major cities, renting apartments, enrolling children in neighborhood schools and trying to find work that doesn’t require government permits.

Elizabeth Campbell, coordinator of the Refugee Council USA, a coalition of nongovernmental organizations involved in refugee assistance, said: “They’re all urban refugees. It’s putting a huge strain on infrastructure.”

An April 13 Caritas press release warned that the Iraqi refugee situation could destabilize the whole region. It said the situation is unsustainable, because few Iraqis are given legal status in their host countries and most are forbidden to work. “Children cannot go to school for either financial or legal reasons, or for fear of having their families sent back to Iraq,” it said.

Anastasia Brown, director of refugee programs for Migration and Refugee Services of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, explained that part of the recent U.S.-U.N. agreement on aiding Iraqis includes admitting more of what the U.S. considers to be especially vulnerable refugees, such as those who face threats at home because they worked for the U.S. government.

In the 2006 fiscal year, the U.S. admitted just 212 Iraqis as refugees. This year there are slots in the refugee allocation for up to 7,000, including those considered most vulnerable.

But Brown and Campbell both said provisions of Homeland Security legislation stand in the way for many people who left Iraq in fear. Negotiations are ongoing with federal agencies to reinterpret rules that bar applicants from admission to the U.S. if they provided “material support” to any of hundreds of groups on terrorist watch lists.

As Brown explained, that restriction is being applied, for example, to people who may have paid a ransom to win the release of kidnapped family members.

If the group responsible for the kidnapping is on the watch lists, the ransom payment could exclude the family from being admitted to the U.S., Brown said. And being classified by the U.S. government as having provided support to a terrorist group, she said, would tag the family with a terrorist-support label that could prevent them from being admitted to other countries as well.