Iraqi music star plans fundraiser for refugees

CAIRO - Prominent Iraqi oud player Naseer Shamma says he plans a fundraising campaign next month that he hopes will raise millions of dollars to help Iraqi refugees in countries such as Syria and Jordan.

Shamma, who has lived in exile since 1993, told Reuters the campaign would feature Arab artists and public figures and would take place under the supervision of the Cairo-based Arab League.

It will include an advertising campaign calling on people to donate through bank accounts, and programmes will be shown on Arab television stations to raise awareness of the refugees' plight.

Shamma said he conceived the idea after watching a documentary on Iraqi refugees last month.

"I have not been able to sleep more than four or five hours a day since that documentary," he said, sitting at his office in a 14th-century house in Cairo's Islamic quarter, where he founded a school to teach youngsters how to play the oud, the Arab cousin of the European lute.

"Winter is approaching. I cannot imagine myself sleeping on a comfortable bed while others are cold, cannot afford medicine or dinner," he said in an interview on Monday.

The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees -- the U.N. refugee agency -- and the Iraqi Red Crescent estimate that more than 4.2 million Iraqis have been displaced within the country or have crossed the border as refugees.

The number includes about 2 million displaced before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 as a result of former President Saddam Hussein's campaigns against his opponents.

Large-scale fundraising campaigns are rare in the Arab world, a region largely dominated by authoritarian rulers who place tight restrictions on civil society activities.

Arab artists rarely take part in human rights activism or major fundraising schemes.

"Such big concerts could turn political, against the United States or against the host country," said Shamma, one of a handful of Arab oud players who are treated like pop stars.

He will meet Arab League officials and representatives of six international agencies on Wednesday, including the U.N. World Food Programme and the U.N. Children's Fund UNICEF, to assess the needs of the refugees and displaced people.