Iraqi women shop for clothes Wednesday at a store in al-Sayda Zeinab, an area in southern Damascus, Syria.

Damascus, Syria ? The vast majority of Iraqis who fled their country have no plans to return even though violence is way down, many hoping instead to resettle in the West.

The trends, uncovered on the basis of scores of interviews by The Associated Press and confirmed by Iraqi government and United Nations figures, raise the possibility that countries like Syria and Egypt — poor themselves — could face a significant refugee problem for years to come.

Iraq may never, or at least not for years, recover much of the urban, educated, predominantly Sunni Muslim and Christian middle-class whose skills would be vital to its rebuilding. The ranks of doctors and other medical professions have been particularly hard-hit by the refugee flight.

“Life here is better. My children can play outside and I know they’ll come back. You never know what’s going to happen there,” said Taghrid Hadi, who fled Iraq in September 2006 after gunmen kidnapped and killed her husband, dumping his mutilated body outside their home just north of Baghdad.

Hadi, 34, has no intention of returning home. She and other relatives are waiting for word on their applications to be resettled in a third country. Where? “Anywhere but Iraq, I don’t care where,” she said.

More than 2 million refugees remain outside Iraq, mostly in the Sunni countries of Syria, Jordan and Egypt, according to the International Organization of Migration and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Only about 16,000 refugees — less than 1 percent — have returned from abroad, said Karim al-Saedi, an Iraqi Migration Ministry official.

Besides Iraqis who fled abroad, approximately 1.6 million people have left their homes to take refuge in other parts of Iraq since 2006. They too have been slow to return: About 297,000, or 18 percent, are believed to have gone back, according to an April report by the International Organization of Migration.

In Syria, which has the greatest refugee population — estimated by the government at 1.2 million — only 670 people have asked to benefit from the U.N.’s Voluntary Repatriation Program launched in October to help Iraqis return home, says Philippe Leclerc, acting representative for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Damascus.

“The situation in Iraq is still extremely fragile,” making many reluctant to return, Leclerc said.

While violence is dramatically down from its height in 2006-2007, the fragility has been clear in the past week, with a string of suicide bombings targeting Shiite areas of Baghdad. In the latest, two car bombs tore through a crowded commercial district, killing 51 people on Wednesday.

Refugees say the lack of basic services and continuing unemployment in Iraq are also reasons they prefer to stay put in neighboring countries, where — even if their savings are running low and their status uncertain — many can find schools and under-the-table jobs.

Also, Sunni-Shiite sectarian divisions remain deep in Iraq. Some refugees have returned home only to find the hatreds too strong, prompting them to leave again.

Batoul Saleh, a Sunni retired teacher who fled to Cairo with her daughter three years ago, went back to Baghdad in late 2007 only to find that a Shiite man and his family had taken over her house in the mainly Shiite Shula district. The man told her his own father’s home was taken over by Sunnis 30 years ago “and it’s payback time,” Saleh said.

“It’s not our country anymore, it’s a gangland, it’s a jungle,” Saleh said as she waited in line at the U.N. refugee agency in the Egyptian capital.

Many among the refugees in Syria are Sunnis, including some Saddam Hussein loyalists or former members of his Baath party. They remain wary of Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government and do not trust the prime minister’s call for reconciliation.

Overall, the lack of returning refugees could leave Iraq significantly more Shiite than before the U.S.-led invasion. Sunnis formed the bedrock of the educated middle class under Saddam’s regime, needed as Iraq rebuilds.

Their reluctance to return only solidifies Iraq’s sectarian imbalance. Baghdad, which once had about equal numbers from the two sects, is now believed to have a firm Shiite majority, with formerly Sunni districts emptied or filled with Shiite migrants.