Iraq to pay Jordan $8 million for hosting refugees

Iraq is to give Jordan $8 million to help its smaller neighbor pay the costs of sheltering hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees, the ambassador to Amman said on Tuesday. Saad Hayani said Iraqi Finance Minister Bayan Jabr Solagh was to deliver the funds to Jordan’s government at a meeting in Amman later the same day with his Jordanian counterpart Hamad al-Kassasbe. “Solagh will provide the Jordanian government with $8 million to help support the country’s health and educational institutions which provides services to the Iraqis in the kingdom,” Hayani told AFP. According to the UN High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR), 4.2 million Iraqis have been displaced since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The UNHCR, which called this the biggest wave of displacement in the Middle East since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, estimates that 750,000 Iraqis have found refuge in Jordan.