Human rights group calls on Iraq to halt deportations of Syrian refugees

Iraqi authorities in Baghdad and the administration in the semiautonomous northern Iraqi Kurdish region have been arbitrarily detaining and deporting Syrian refugees to their country, a leading international rights group said Thursday.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said it had documented cases in which Iraqi authorities deported Syrians even though they had legal residency or were registered with the U.N. Refugee Agency, UNHCR.

The Syrians reported being arrested in raids at their workplace or on the streets, and, in…