IRAQ-SECURITY ARBIL CAMP 1.2 million people displaced in Iraq - UNHCR

Record ID: 347196

  • Title: IRAQ-SECURITY ARBIL CAMP 1.2 million people displaced in Iraq - UNHCR
  • Date: 21st August 2014
  • Summary: BAHRKAH REFUGEE CAMP, ARBIL ,IRAQ (AUGUST 21, 2014) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF UNHCR TENTS REFUGEE CHILD NEAR TENT CHILDREN AND MEN ARRIVING REFUGEE FAMILY (SOUNDBITE) (English) UNHCR PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER, NED COLB , SAYING: 2 million internally displaced people IDPs, we call them, and here in the Kurdistan region of Iraq we believe that figure to be between 600,000 or 700
  • Embargoed: 5th September 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAA3S5CARCH0N0X773J4P9WQXTF
  • Story Text: UNHCR on Thursday ( August 21) said the agency noted a considerable increase in displaced families crossing into Iraq's Kurdistan region over the past three weeks.
    They form part of a total of 1.2 million displaced people in Iraq, many of who are women and children.
    "There'll already be about 1.2 million internally displaced people IDPs, we call them, and here in the Kurdistan region of Iraq we believe that figure to be between 600,000 or 700,000 people, 200,000 of whom crossed into the Kurdistan region of Iraq just in the last two and half weeks following the Sinjar crisis, so the numbers are growing and so are the needs, the needs are immense", said Ned Colb , UNHCR public information officer.
    Hundreds of thousands have fled their homes since fighters led by Islamic State militants swept through much of the north and west of Iraq, threatening to break up the country.
    About 200,000 displaced have settled in Iraq's Kurdistan region since August when the city of Sinjar and neighbouring areas were seized by Islamic State, according to UNHCR.
    "Families are large here by international standards 5 to 6 people in the family and many of them are children, so children are extremely vulnerable in a situation like this, not just emotionally but also physically, so they're a priority group that we're trying to help, in addition to the elderly to women and others who are the most vulnerable in a situation like this", Colb added.
    At least 11,000 people from the Yazidi minority have taken shelter inside Iraq's neighbour Syria, and about 300 more are crossing the Peshkabour border every day.
    "We were in Mosul but we came here (to Arbil) when the shelling started, then they forced us to leave Khazer refugee camp to come here, they hardly accept us to be here." Fahad Sabah , a refugge child, said.
    Most refugee children suffer from difficult living conditions.
    "We were playing and studying, and doing everything ." Zainab, a refugee girl, said.
    Abu Ibrahim, Zainab's father, said that the children spent their time inside the tent.
    "We force them to stay here in the tent, as you know there is always sandstorms outside, so they are here in the tent with the air conditioner, in other words we jail them. Where should they go? As you see the ground is muddy. I have sent them for few days to the schools but they were coming back very tired and sweaty", he said.
    The first of a four-day airlift by the United Nations refugee agency arrived in the Kurdish city of Arbil on Wednesday in a major aid operation to get supplies to more than half a million people displaced by fighting in northern Iraq.

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