seeking refuge in as far away countries as India.

With frayed tempers, around 500 displaced Palestinians, including women and children and 20 disabled persons, live in poor South Delhi localities from day to day, without any aim and little hope.

They wake up every morning with a hope that a letter will arrive from the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) office here informing them that a certain country has agreed to accept them as refugees.

While Western countries, including Australia and New Zealand, have been accepting other refugees from India like Iraqis, no country has to date accepted any Palestinian.

The Palestinians started fleeing Iraq when, according to refugees I spoke to, Shiite militia started killing them simply because they were Palestinian Sunnis in what these refugees refer to as al-qatl 'ala al-hawiyya - murder by the identity card.

In other words, Palestinians were being killed simply because they were Palestinians.

Most of the Palestinian refugees in Delhi come from the Baladiyat quarter of Baghdad, which was built by President Ahmad Hasan Al-Bakr in 1973 to house Palestinian refugees.

This locality housed ten thousand Palestinians at the start of the American invasion but today, according to these refugees, its population has dwindled to less than 5000.

Palestinians still living in Al-Baladiyat, in spite of receiving daily threats and facing the risk of murder any time, are the ones who do not have enough money to flee.

According to a refugee here, a fake Iraqi passport allowing them to travel abroad costs at least two thousand dollars.

Despite this hurdle, some estimates that around 3500 Iraq-based Palestinians flee Iraq in various direction everyday.

AMSI Net- Islamonline