BAGHDAD — A second exodus has begun here, of Iraqis who returned after fleeing the carnage of the height of the war, but now find that violence and the nation’s severe lack of jobs are pulling them away from home once again.

Since the American invasion in 2003, refugees have been a measure of the country’s precarious condition, flooding outward during periods of violence and trickling back as Iraq seemed to stabilize. This new migration shows how far the nation remains from being stable and secure...

....Nearly 100,000 refugees have returned since 2008, out of more than two million who left since the invasion, according to the Iraqi government and the United Nations high commissioner for refugees.

But as they return, pulled by improved security in Iraq or pushed by a lack of work abroad, many are finding that their homeland is still not ready — their houses are gone or occupied, their neighborhoods unsafe, their opportunities minimal.

In a recent survey by the United Nations refugee office, 61 percent of those who returned to Baghdad said they regretted coming back, most saying they did not feel safe. The majority, 87 percent, said they could not make enough money here to support their families. Applications for asylum in Syria have risen more than 50 percent since May.

As Iraq struggles toward a return to stability, these returnees risk becoming people without a country, displaced both at home and abroad. And though departures have ebbed since 2008, a wave of recent attacks on Christians has prompted a new exodus...

...For Abu Maream and his family, who left for Syria in 2005 and came back last year, life has come down to a choice between bad options. Syria seemed safe, he said, but he felt “humiliated” as an unemployed foreigner seeking work, selling off his possessions to keep the family afloat. Back here, he has been unable to find work, and neighbors who used to respect the family now “look down on us,” he said.

On a recent afternoon he sat in a two-room apartment with only a mattress on the floor and a few possessions in boxes. He had no refrigerator and received only a few hours of electricity a day.

“Before, we had Shiite neighbors, and there were no problems at all,” said Mr. Maream, who is Sunni. “The government created the sectarian thing,” he said, meaning that the political parties formed along ethnic or religious lines, formalizing the division. Now his neighborhood has become a stronghold for Sunni extremists.

He sat on the edge of the mattress, his mother sitting behind him. In the coming months, he said, he will send his sisters and mother back to Syria for their safety, and he and his wife and three children will move in with an uncle in Iraq, splitting up the family. When the family would be reunited in Syria he could not say.

“It’s over; that’s it,” he said. “I’m not coming back. How can I come back? I don’t believe Iraq will have a chance again.”

KABUL -- The number of Afghans who are fleeing their country and seeking political asylum abroad has spiked dramatically during the past two years, a sign that people here are giving up the dream of a peaceful homeland to seek security and employment elsewhere.

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The increase has coincided with a sharp escalation in U.S. troop levels and has made Afghanistan the world's top country of origin for asylum seekers worldwide - ahead of Iraq and Somalia, according to statistics compiled by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Last year, 27,057 Afghans sought official protection in foreign nations, and although the pace is down this year, the overall trend line could be a troubling indicator as the United States seeks to return Afghanistan to stability.

The vast majority of the refugees are young men in their teens, 20s and 30s, often well educated and with the financial means to pay $20,000 or more to human smugglers for passports and visas to Pakistan or Iran, then on to Europe, Australia, Canada or the United States, immigration officials said.

Among the most capable and brightest of their generation, some are fleeing war-ravaged villages or ethnic tribal violence. But more appear to be pursuing education and higher-paying jobs, sending money home to their families or arranging for relatives to join them abroad.

The common thread among them, human rights activists said, is a growing impatience with the war and a lack of faith that U.S. and NATO forces, which are aiming to hand off authority to Afghan troops by 2014, will prevail against the Taliban.

"What's driving this sharp increase is an uncertainty among the population about the future," said Ahmad Nader Nadery, a commissioner at the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. "As the discussions about troop withdrawal become much more serious, this is a question of survival. They don't see the current fragility in this government allowing it to make a smooth transition to prevent the Taliban from coming back."

The increase of Afghan refugees has prompted foreign governments to implement stricter immigration controls. In Australia, where 2,705 Afghans have applied for asylum this year, significantly more than last year, officials froze all Afghan cases for six months before lifting the ban in October. Less than one-third of the Afghan applicants in Australia have been granted asylum protection this year.

European countries, which have no unified asylum policy, have deported hundreds of Afghan refugees and kept many more in detention centers or refugee camps for months. Fewer Afghans have applied for asylum in the United States, which immigration officials attributed to the closer proximity of Europe and easier access to South Asian staging points for reaching Australia. In 2010, 113 Afghans applied for asylum in the United States, the most since 2002, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service.