IRAQ: Tears flowed and long-parted relatives embraced yesterday as more than 200 Iraqis set foot in their homeland again after 13 years of exile in neighbouring Saudi Arabia.
"I feel like my soul has returned to my body," said Ali Salman, his eyes swimming with tears at the Umm Qasr border crossing in southern Iraq. "I can't believe I am actually home and that I will see my family again. I just can't believe it."
Like most of the 240 men, women and children who were repatriated by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, Salman is a Shia Muslim who fled to Saudi Arabia after a failed 1991 uprising against Iraq's now deposed leader Saddam Hussein.
Other returnees were former Iraqi soldiers who defected during the 1991 Gulf War.
The fearful refugees sought asylum in Saudi Arabia, where they lived in relative luxury at the frontier Rafha camp. But the idea of returning home remained a remote dream until US-led forces ousted Saddam in April.
The 240 were among a group of 5,200 Iraqis in Rafha who had held sit-ins and hunger strikes to pressure the authorities and the UNHCR to repatriate them.
"Today marks the beginning of the end for the Rafha refugee camp," said UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner Kamel Morjane.
"We hope to repatriate everyone as soon as possible."
Moments after stepping off the bus, Yacoub Ghazi spied his sister Fatima among the crowd of relatives straining against the customs area fence. He flung himself into her arms and sobbed like a child.