More than two-dozen Palestinian refugees fleeing from violence in Iraq have been granted asylum in Iceland and will be heading there on Monday.
The group of 29 people, mostly widows with their children, and single women, has been stranded on the border between Iraq and Syria for two years.
The United Nations refugee agency welcomed Iceland's acceptance of the refugees.
However, there remain at least 2,300 others who are in limbo and are living in desperate conditions. There are around 1,400 refugees in Al-Walid camp inside Iraq and another 900 refugees in A-Tanf, both located on the Iraqi-Syrian border. A-Tanf has doubled in size since October 2007.
A group of 155 Palestinians in A-Tanf are scheduled to be resettled in Sweden soon.
Some 34,000 Palestinians lived in Iraq under Saddam Hussein's regime and received protection from Baghdad. After Saddam was ousted in 2003 many of them faced harassment and violence from the locals, causing thousands to flee to neighboring countries such as Jordan and Syria.
Their numbers in Iraq have since dropped dramatically by nearly two thirds.
Jordan and Syria have absorbed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees over the past few years and are finding it hard to handle the burden.
Iceland takes in between 25 and 30 refugees every year, and in recent years has focused on resettling single women and single mothers with their children, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.
