Some Iraqis flooding Jordan get free schooling

For the first time since the start of the Iraq war, Jordan is allowing all Iraqi children -- regardless of refugee status -- to enroll in state-funded schools. This means that even illegal refugees with no paperwork can send their kids to school with no questions asked.

About 10 percent of Jordan's population is now made up of Iraqi refugees. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates up to 250,000 school-age Iraqi children are in Jordan. The influx is putting a strain on schools. Even with some U.N. and U.S. aid to Jordan, there's still not enough money.

Seated at a rectangular table covered with a red and white tablecloth, the boys tell stories of horror and displacement. Eighteen-year-old Qutaiba lost five immediate family members before moving to Jordan to try to live a normal life. Matter-of-factly and with a straight-ahead stare, he repeats the number: "Five members."

Most of the boys and young men from Iraq have missed several years of school -- up to a four-year educational gap that will delay not only their high school graduation, but also their entry into the workforce.

All say, though, that they feel lucky to have gotten out, even if the violence in their country means always having to be on the move, ready to live far from home and away from loved ones.

"It's not strange for me to be in the middle of people I don't know," says eleventh grader Ziad Tarek Al Shamsi. "I had friends in Iraq when I was small, I left them. In America, I left them. I came here, I left them." He pauses: "But you have to miss your country."

The population shift in the Middle East is, according to UNHCR head Antonio Guterres, the largest urban refugee situation in the world.

[CNN]