They'd fled the murderous bloodshed of their homeland. But instead of finding a better life abroad - Iraq's growing number of refugees are trapped instead in a humanitarian crisis.

They're forced to live in the shadows - without work, money or prospects. Neighbouring countries refuse to recognise their plight - Britain and the United States - whose invasion sparked the turmoil in Iraq - have accepted just 500 refugees. Only Sweden is providing a home for the thousands looking for a better life outside the Middle East. But their numbers continue to grow.

The spiralling violence means 50,000 people are now flee their homes in Baghdad and Iraq every month.

Around two million have headed to Syria and Jordan. But refused refugee status and facing ever tightening restrictions - they're having to rely instead on people smugglers - who charge up to $20,000 a time.

In the first of a week long series of reports on fractured Iraq - our foreign affairs correspondent Jonathan Miller reports on the country's dispossessed.

 

'My tragedy as an Iraqi is that I've had to flee my country, abandon my home and turn my children into refugees. We were threatened again and again; they shut down my husband's shop; drove us out of our home.' Umm Omar

Fractured Iraq

This is the surge the other way; the haemorrhaging of a dying nation. A humanitarian disaster unfolding the UN says; nearly four million Iraqis displaced now by sectarian cleansing, kidnap and carnage; two million have fled altogether, half of them here in Syria; busload after busload arriving in Damascus, a hundred thousand more every month.

Sunni, Shia, Christian, Chaldean and Turkmen, all tell stories of chaos, destruction and death; the land they all love, no longer fit to be lived in. We spoke to one woman who's son has been kidnapped - twice.

 

"My tragedy as an Iraqi is that I've had to flee my country, abandon my home and turn my children into refugees. We were threatened again and again; they shut down my husband's shop; drove us out of our home" - Umm Omar

Umm Omar considers herself a refugee, but she's not considered a refugee by the Syrian government. Five thousand a day queuing to register, but Syria hasn't signed the UN Convention on Refugees. Desperate Iraqis: hoping for long-term refuge, but classified "visitors" and given temporary visas.

And with new tighter restrictions already in force, there's a pervasive fear of mass-deportation back to Baghdad.

Fleeing to Jordan

In neighbouring Jordan, a million Iraqis in a country of five million people. The population of Amman has doubled in less than three years. The issue political dynamite here; half the population is already made up of Palestinian refugees.

They don't want any more. Iraqis here have already been forced to live under the radar; men skulking in back-alleys; only women venturing onto the streets, some as prostitutes; others, like Umm Kassem, we found selling cigarettes by the roadside.

She insisted we follow her to see how she lived, with her son and daughter-in-law and four grandchildren. I warn you, she told me, it's not fit for animals. She was right, showing us a hole where the old lady sleeps.

"The rain came pouring in here last night, from up there. We are still alive. But only just." - Umm Kassem.

Up the dark, narrow corridor, the room where the rest of them live and sleep - and eat, when they can afford to. Hussein is too scared to step outside - even for a haircut, he told me.

He said they'd fled to Jordan to get medical treatment for Haider, his son who had severe burns over his body.

"A mortar landed right outside our house in Sadr City; Haider was playing outside the door. I miss Iraq a lot. There is no country in all the world like my country.

The land of Iraq is worth more than all the Arab countries put together. I want to kiss the soil of my homeland. It is the richest country in the world. May Allah help us." - Hussein.

Umm Kassem, the family breadwinner, went back to selling her cigarettes. On a good day she makes just two pounds. No wonder Haider, the child with the burns, still hadn't had any treatment.

Elsewhere in this warren of houses, maybe a million stateless people, living without hope. They've escaped hell in Iraq and are now stuck in limbo. Many destitute, most illegal, no schools, no healthcare, no jobs, always the looming threat of summary deportation.

 

Like Syria, Jordan doesn't recognise Iraqis as refugees either. But the UN refugee agency here has been mobbed by them anyway. Jordanian intelligence agencies so sensitive about what's happening here we'd been expressly warned not to film these queues; we did so, discretely. The UN has advised Jordan to grant these people refugee status; Jordan continues to refuse to do so.

"We have a different position in that we view the Iraqis from central and southern Iraq as refugees, the great majority of them have fled for reasons of general insecurity and violence that is taking place in Iraq.

Jordan views it within an Arab neighbourly context where they consider them visitors temporarily residing in Jordan without looking into their particular humanitarian context but judging it within a political situation." - Robert Breen, UNHCR Representative

Jordan's now barrinig the entry of young Iraqi men; turning back planeloads of Shia Muslims. Over-land public transport between Iraq and Jordan has ground to a standstill; the bus station, once teaming, now empty; the big four-wheel drive taxis now rarely running the gauntlet to Baghdad.

Coalition of the unwilling?

Among Jordanians, Syrians and Iraqis, a growing sense of outrage that the rest of the world has washed its hands of this problem; that Britain and America in particular, have turned a blind eye to the fallout of their endeavour in Iraq.

"It's really the height of hypocrisy, countries that were instrumental in fighting this war, initiated this war, fought this war and that through their botch-ups have created this chaos in Iraq today these countries are refusing to receive refugees coming from Iraq.

They prefer them to be bottle up in Jordan; they are talking about providing aid to these people so that they can be taken care of and do not feel any great pressure to leave Jordan, but of course it's not in the Jordanian interest that they stay here either.

And so there's a contradiction between the European countries and Jordan over the fate of these refugees." - Joost Hiltermann, International Crisis Group

Jordan: loath to solicit international assistance, for fear of turning the Kingdom into even more of a refugee Mecca.

The barbers' story

Iraqis were initially welcome; but when house prices tripled, Iraqis took the rap and it wasn't entirely their fault - but false impressions have festered and resentment runs high.

The middle class exodus followed; the doctors, the lawyers, engineers. None of them made to feel particularly welcome. And then came the hairdressers.

Three barbers from Baghdad escaped and set up shop in Amman last year; life had become unliveable. One had been kidnapped; their shop car-bombed - twice. Religious zealots had also been killing off Baghdad's beard-trimmers.

We filmed with these men openly, but have chosen to conceal their identities after witnessing a lightening police round-up of Iraqi illegal; reports of forced deportations ever-more freqent now. The barbers' temporary residence permits, long-expired.

"It is difficult: working here's hard. Iraqis aren't allowed work permits. We don't have residency either. It's scary. Our lives are totally unstable. All our passports have been cancelled - if you do leave you can't get back in. Britain and America should open their doors to Iraqis. Jordan isn't letting them in any more." - Hassan

"The Brits and Americans brought this disaster on us. They're the occupiers. The solution is also in their hands. They brought their armies across the continents, so surely they can solve this. Let them get us out of this mess. Why don't they let us in? Why is Sweden the only country accepting Iraqis?" - Ali

Unable to go home, stranded Iraqis dream of sanctuary in Sweden; but it's a dream that costs. Munir, one of the three barbers of Baghdad has just shelled out $20,000 to people smugglers and six weeks ago, successfully escaped to Europe's snowy north.

"Of course I miss him. He's a friend of mine. We spent a lot of time with him. And it's our dream, me and Hassan, to follow Munir to Sweden." - Ali

Their dream likely to remain a dream though. But we were able to follow Munir to Sweden.

'We flew from Syria to another country, waited in the airport for a couple of hours then caught another flight. When we landed our smuggler told us: 'This is Stockholm. My work is over.' He took our passports and said 'Now you're on your own. Find a police officer and turn yourself in.' Munir Ibrahim

Winter in Sweden

Sweden has a relatively generous asylum policy; more than 80,000 Iraqis have already settled here; now word's got out among the new wave of exiles, Sweden's been deluged. Last year it accepted half of all the Iraqis smuggled into the European Union.

To find Munir we headed to a coastal village several hours' drive south of Stockholm. He'd arrived in Sweden with Shaima, his wife, and baby Sara in mid-January. Munir was kidnapped in Baghdad last year. A big ransom and a broken leg later, he fled. The relief of arriving here, they described, as "like throwing iced water on hot coals."

"It had become a living hell in Baghdad, and it was getting worse. When you'd leave your house in the morning, you'd never know if you'd come back dead or alive - you put a piece of paper in your pocket with your phone number and address on it, so if you died on the road you'd be returned to your home. That's how bad things had got.

"From Amman, we started by going to Syria. All the "procedures" took place there. There are specialist people smugglers from whom you buy foreign passports. It's a complete package: they change the photos, all that sort of thing.

"We flew from Syria to another country, waited in the airport for a couple of hours then caught another flight. When we landed our smuggler told us: 'This is Stockholm. My work is over.' He took our passports and said 'Now you're on your own. Find a police officer and turn yourself in.'"- Munir Ibrahim

Stockholm's northern suburb of Rinkeby is as close as Sweden comes to a ghetto; name your world hotspot, they're here. Iraqis now a human tide though; five hundred every week, the backlog of casefiles building up. Sweden, bracing for a three-fold increase this year, forcing the issue onto the EU agenda.

Last year, 2006, was the deadliest year in Iraq since the invasion. That's what triggered the surge. Of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who fled, 8,951 applied for asylum here in Sweden. More than 80 per cent will be granted the right to remain.

In contrast, the number of Iraqis allowed to stay in the United States last year: 202. And in Britain? 205.

There's a new centre-right government in Sweden, and a quiet indignation building in Stockholm's corridors of power that Sweden has been cast as Europe's soft touch.

"The problem is who do you direct that anger towards. The trouble is you have to be generous, to show solidarity to those who are experiencing the trials and terrors of Iraq. I personally feel as Minister of Migration that I should act on that feeling that people need to be given shelter. If they are persecuted or pursued by people." Tobias Billstrom, Minister for Migration and Asylum.

Munir and Shaima sat with me and watched our pictures of their old friends Ali and Hassan, still stuck in Amman. I just hope they get out of that mess, Munir told me and that they can get here, and rest. Shaima's just learned that she's pregnant again, but their happiness is overshadowed by the torment of conflicting emotions.

"It's difficult to describe - yes, we are happy we escaped but all my thoughts are with my family. I miss them a lot. I wish they were here, every moment of the day I think about them... I wish I could turn back time, to have just a moment back, to hug my mum again... I wish I could see my mum, hug her (she starts crying) I really miss Mum - I don't know how to describe it in words." - Shaima Rejab

It will be many months before Munir and Shaima hear if they've been granted asylum but some day, one of the three barbers of Baghdad may open a new salon in Sweden.

Although thousands of Iraqis continue to pour into this country, they're a drop in an ocean of outcasts - millions, uprooted and now disavowed.

The suspicion mounting that for Britain and the United States to admit more Iraqis would also be to admit that they've failed those they'd once sought to liberate.