NORWAY – “I am Iraqi,” says Yusri, with an Egyptian accent.

In several other Arab dialects, others make the same claim.

While Arabs from around the region cross into Iraq to become foreign fighters and suicide bombers, outside of its borders, Iraq is facing a new popular influx, as Arab nationals seek asylum in Europe on the pretext that they are Iraqis. These claimants exploit the measures offered by the signatory countries to the UN Convention on Refugees to offer a secure livelihood to those displaced from countries where security has broken down, or to those who are threatened for other reasons.

Yusri is a man of 33 years. He and his brother Muhammad are both fishermen by trade. They insist that they are Iraqi of an Egyptian father and Iraqi mother, claiming that their father had obtained Iraqi citizenship during the rule of Saddam Hussein.

Abu Ahmad, an Iraqi refugee in Norway living near Yusri and his brother, says, “The two men often ask me about Basra and its most important landmarks, its markets, and its sports clubs.”

“I was expecting that they loved Basra as a city, and it never crossed my mind that they were Iraqi refugees to Norway,” he says.

Abu Ahmed, 30, explains that he discovered the truth after he saw their official papers, issued by the Norwegian authorities, with the words “From Iraq” written on them.

Abu Ahmed notes that one night Muhammad invited him to his room, and offered him tea, telling him that he “needed some information on Basra,” to prepare for the interrogation that he would face before the Norwegian Immigration Directorate, known by its Norwegian acronym UDI. The UDI is the agency responsible for looking into requests advanced by refugees from other countries to Norway.

The UDI’s investigation is similar to those conducted by the authorities of any other country to ascertain the needs of the person advancing the request for asylum, and to confirm, for security purposes, if the person qualifies for refugee status.

Despite Abu Ahmad’s intentions, Muhammad provided incorrect responses about Basra to the UDI, because he had obtained some false information in his research on the Internet. “He also used Google Earth,” Abu Ahmad says, referring to the program that often provides precise details on the map of the requested area including detailed geographical and statistical information.

It appears that Muhammad trained for hours to memorize specific information about the southern Iraqi city, “especially since the investigative committee would ask Muhammad to describe at length” the area that he lived in and his memories of it, according to Abu Ahmad.

In 2007 the UN High Commission for Refugees announced that World Refugee Day, observed each year on June 20, would call attention to the suffering of Iraqi refugees, as the overall global number of refugees is increasing for the first time in five years, especially because of the escalating violence in Iraq.

Iraq’s condition is exploited by some citizens of other Arab countries who seek to emigrate to the West, where they adopt Iraqi identities, at times presenting forged papers to the immigration authorities to facilitate their asylum request.

In Norway, as in other Western countries, claimants will not obtain asylum unless they come from a country where security has broken down -- and Iraq remains the most dangerous place in the world, as part of it is under al-Qa'ida control, armed militias control other parts.

Measures taken by the Norwegian authorities “are still insufficient,” says Abu Aydan, an Iraqi refugee, since this phenomenon is increasing in a dramatic way, and even the UDI’s spoken examinations in Iraqi dialect “fail,” because many of the Arab would-be Iraqis have lived in Iraq for many years, during which time they obtained fluency in the Iraqi dialect, learning even the most difficult words in the colloquial Iraqi vocabulary, he adds.

Abu Adyan explains that the interrogation methods by the UDI, are not at the level required, and are often limited to very clear questions about some of the best-known areas and places in Baghdad, such as “Where is the Rashid Hotel?” -- or the Meridian or Sheraton, or the Green Zone’s Convention Center housing the Iraqi Parliament -- all well-known places, not least because they are frequently targeted by militant groups.

Abu Adyan adds, “It is unbelievable that I proved my Iraqi identity by responding to the question ‘Where is the al-Hajj Zabbala Juice Stand?’”

Al-Hajj Zabbala is a famous juice stand on al-Rashid Street in Baghdad city center, known for selling pure currant juice. It has been open since the mid-20th century, and even most presidents and kings of Iraq have been among its frequent visitors.

Abu Mario, in his forties, took refuge in Norway with his son Mario, 11. Abu Mario insists that he’s an Iraqi from Baghdad, and that he left Iraq more than 25 years ago and fled with his father to Syria in 1982 when he was 16 years old. He claims they left Iraq without taking any evidence to prove their Iraqi nationality. “We lived in Syria without official papers and we are now in Norway without documents that prove our identities,” Abu Mario says.

The Norwegian authorities still ask Abu Mario for proof of his Iraqi nationality, even with papers from the church in which he was baptized. But Abu Mario says, “I don’t remember if my baptism or my first communion was in Mosul or in Baghdad, adding, “but I remember that the church had a big cross on top.”

Some statistics indicate that Norway hosts nearly 20,000 Iraqi refugees who came over the last several years, and Iraqis continue to arrive in the country.

Abu Rishwan, 37, is a Kurdish Iraqi who works as an employee in the refugee housing facility. He says that a Palestinian family living in Iraq came to Norway and asked for asylum, saying that they were an Iraqi family who were born and lived in Iraq. They spoke the Iraqi dialect “perfectly,” he says.

A little over a year ago, the family obtained refugee status in Norway on the pretext that they were Iraqis. Abu Rishwan explains that the while the Palestinian family achieved asylum in Norway, “other Iraqis that were with them at the same time did not obtain” refugee status.

The Norwegian authorities, through the UDI, have stopped dealing with Iraqi passports of “Class S,” which are deemed easier to forge, and only accept Iraqi passports of “Class G,” which have been determined more difficult to forge by international organizations -- except that those seeking refuge in the European countries often destroy or damage all their identification before they travel to the West and submit themselves to the authorities, which increases the difficulty of determining the national origin of the claimant, in order to ensure that they are not deported.

One of the interrogators in the UDI said that the Norwegian police were now taking special measures regarding Arabs who claim that they are Iraqis.

Ahmad Salama, 38, is a Norwegian citizen of Iraqi origin. He says that a friend of his, of Syrian descent, obtained refugee status in Norway about seven years ago, after establishing his “Iraqi” identity with forged papers.

The Norwegian authorities agreed to his request for asylum, and later he obtained Norwegian citizenship, “although he is under investigation now,” Salama says.

“His citizenship will probably be stripped from him, and he will face legal proceedings,” in the case that the Norwegian authorities prove that his Syrian friend is not Iraqi, Salama continues.

As for Yasri the Egyptian and his brother, they have been informed by the Norwegian authorities after the end of a series of intensive investigations “that you are not Iraqi as you claim,” pushing Yasri and his brother Muhammad to flee the country.

Ziad Khalaf al-Ajili is an Iraqi journalist. He is also manager of the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an independent organization that monitors press freedom in Iraq.