By Jia Xiaohua, Gu Kang

"Jaramana has become a mini Iraq with the majority of the population being Iraqis, and they are willing to pay 400 U.S. dollars a month for an apartment which was only 200 dollars before," Zaidoon Jamil al-Ali, 34, who lives in the area of Jaramana east to Damascus, told Xinhua Thursday.

"Most Iraqis bought shops, restaurants and office rooms on both sides of the road to the town of Jaramana, and local owners like to lease their houses to the Iraqis because they could get double rent," added Ali.

While he only saw a few Iraqis in his neighborhood before who were fleeing the autocracy of the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Most of the Syrians, like Ali, expressed their deep worry about the increasing influx of Iraqi refugees whose presence has inflicted a heavy burden both to the country and people here.

According to official statistics, the number of Iraqi refugees in Syria has reached 1.4 million, accounting for over half of the total exodus who fled the war-wracked Iraq, and there are still 2, 500 refugees coming on a daily basis.

The enormous mass of Iraqis directly affects Syria's subsidies system, its infrastructure and public services and prices of daily commodities and properties have climbed up.

With more and more Iraqis entering the labor market, more and more Syrians felt the pressure of fiercer competition and the unemployment rate of the natives went up even higher.

Badia Salami, a real estate agent in Asherfeh Sahnaya south of Damascus, said he could not offer empty houses now because his resources has been used up by the incoming Iraqis.

"This has made situation of those Syrians who are living in rental houses even worse as they cannot afford the higher rent raised by the Iraqis," said Salami, explaining that the rent in his area also doubled to 400 U.S. dollars and would hit 600 dollar in the summer tourist season.

"So the Syrians are forced to find small rooms commensurate with their incomes," he added.

Local people also expressed their insecurity as so many Iraqis who are living around belonged to different social strata in Iraq.

"I am forbidding my children from going outside at night after more and more Iraqis came," said Adham Zainuddin, 45, who shared an apartment building with several Iraqi families in Jaramana.

"The situation has become unsustainable, and problems abound in Jaramana after their arrival," he added.

Syria is the only country that permits entry of the Iraqis without a visa, grants them a one-month renewable stay and allows Iraqi children access to schools after submission of required documents. 

The Immigration and Passport Department in Damascus witnesses each day hundreds of Iraqis swarming there for annual or interim residence cards.

In order to alleviate the hustle and bustle, the department set up several other centers in Duma, 20 km east to Damascus, to receive the Iraqis.

The tremendous quantities of Iraqi refugees are wearing off Syria's resources, which covers only 180,000 square km with a population of over 18 million and has already hosted more than a half million Palestinian refugees.

The Syrian government estimated that hosting the Iraqi refugees cost it 1 billion dollars annually.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 2 million Iraqis are now displaced inside Iraq and a further 2.2 million are sheltering in neighboring countries, with some 1.4 million now staying in Syria and 750,000 in Jordan.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last month that the Iraqi refugee issue was "a global responsibility" and urged other governments to do more to help relieve the crisis, particularly by providing aid to major refugee receivers such as Syria and Jordan.

But so far, most of the refugee burden is still being carried by Syria and Jordan, the UNHCR said.

 Xinhua