Press Briefing Notes
Tuesday 9 December 2003
Spokesperson: Jean Philippe Chauzy

1. IRAQ - IOM Supports Medevac of Iraqi Children to Greece
2. THAILAND - Inter-Ministerial Consultation
    on Thai Overseas Workers
3. BARBADOS - Caribbean Migration Seminar

IRAQ - IOM Supports Medevac of Iraqi Children to Greece - IOM has supported the evacuation of a further 25 Iraqi children from Baghdad to Greece for medical treatment unavailable in Iraq.

The evacuation of the patients, who come from Baghdad and various regions of Iraq to hospitals in and around Athens, was on behalf of the Greek government and Médecins du Monde (MDM) Greece.

Staff from IOM's Medical Evacuation and Health Reconstruction Programme (MEHRPI) in Iraq assisted in the selection of the patients and facilitated their transport from Iraq to Amman, Jordan, where they joined a flight to Athens.

The children, each of whom is accompanied by a family member, will receive specialist treatment in areas such as neurosurgery, cardiac surgery, and reconstructive surgery to treat severe burn injuries.

The evacuation, which follows an earlier evacuation of 14 Iraqi children to Greece in July, brings the number of Iraqi patients evacuated to Greece with MEHRPI
support to 39.

MEHRPI, which is supported by funding from ECHO and Kuwait, combines selective medical evacuations with help to re-build Iraq's dilapidated specialist health care system. It matches patients who cannot be treated inside Iraq with free hospital beds and treatment offered by foreign donor countries.

To date 778 cases have been referred to MEHRPI by hospitals throughout Iraq. Some 384 have been identified as eligible for evacuation by the programme's international medical selection team. Of 145 patients evacuated to 11 countries since late May, 68 have already returned to Iraq, following successful treatment.

Under MEHRPI, IOM identifies host hospitals, arranges travel documentation and transport for the patient and at least one family member, monitors treatment, provides feedback to families and, when the treatment is complete, coordinates transport back to Iraq.

THAILAND - Inter-Ministerial Consultation on Thai Overseas Workers - IOM Bangkok and Thailand's Ministry of Labour have jointly organized Thailand's first inter-ministerial consultation on Thai overseas workers.

The event brought together over 60 representatives from the Ministries of Education, Foreign Affairs, Social Development and Human Security, Public Health, and Interior, as well as academic researchers and members of the Association of Recruitment Agencies in Thailand.

Thailand is a major labour exporting country. Every year between 1996 and 2001 an average of over 186,000 Thais left the country to work overseas. The government estimates that 400,000 Thai migrants are currently legally working abroad.

In 2001, at least US$ 1.25 billion of remittances were sent to Thailand through official banking channels - the equivalent to 32.8 per cent of all foreign direct investment.

The meeting, which followed a major meeting of ministers from labour exporting countries held in Colombo in April, called for greater protection for Thai migrant workers overseas and better pre-departure/pre-employment orientation to equip migrants with the skills and knowledge required for working overseas. It also called for enhanced skills training and education for migrant workers.

BARBADOS - Caribbean Migration Seminar - A joint regional seminar on Mixed Migratory Flows in the Caribbean: Migration Management, Contingency Planning and Refugee Protection opened in Bridgetown yesterday.

Organized by IOM, in cooperation with UNHCR, and with support of the Government of Barbados, the 4-day event brings together regional and international experts on migration management and refugee protection with a view toward planning and managing both day-to-day flows and more complex emergencies.

On Friday, after the seminar, IOM will host an additional one-day working session giving the representatives from the eighteen participating countries an opportunity to discuss specific program plans in more depth.

Participants in the seminar and the IOM working session are: Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Caymen Islands, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican

Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Netherlands Antilles, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, as well as other regional and international organizations and other institutions.

The seminar was made possible through financial support from the U.S. Department of State.