GENEVA, July 9 (KUNA) -- The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced Wednesday that the top five donors for the Iraqi program are so far USA (USD 18 million), Canada (USD 4.6 million), Germany (USD 3.2 million), Japan (2.8 million), while Kuwait and the Netherlands have each donated USD two million.

Meanwhile, the special representative of the refugee agency in Iraq, Dennis McNamara, announced that High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers would be meeting, next Monday, with representatives of European and regional states, where Iraqis reside and show interest to go home.

The refugee agency requires for the Iraq program till the end of the year, USD 31 million, and has received so far USD 59 million.

In addition, the UNHCR has also received USD 15.6 million from the Oil for Food Program to fund activities relating to the return of refugees.

The UNHCR special envoy noted that some 20,000 refugees have returned from Jordan without UNHCR assistance, several thousands from Iran, wheras several hundreds of thousands have returned from Lebanon and elsewhere in the last weeks.

He added that the international agency was arranging for the return of some 5000 Iraqi refugees from the Rafha camp in Saudi Arabia, and that the first group would cross into Iraq in the coming weeks.

McNamara announced that for the first time his agency and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) agreed that the latter agency would lend its expertise to the UNHCR in the registration of Palestinian refugees in Iraq and in improving health services to them.

The Palestinian refugees stand at some 80,000. Lubbers would be traveling to the region in middle of July and would be in Baghdad on July 19-20. (end)

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