IOM is urgently seeking $20 million to help
the rapidly growing numbers of vulnerable internally displaced
people (IDPs) in Iraq in need of emergency humanitarian
assistance.

Nearly 100,000 people have been displaced in
Iraq’s central and southern governorates since the bombing of
the shrine at Samara on 22 February and numbers are continually
rising, according to IOM, which is coordinating the monitoring of
IDPs in these regions. The majority of the displaced have moved in
with friends and families, which is placing great strain on already
vulnerable host communities. Others are squatting in abandoned
buildings with few facilities while about an estimated 3 per cent
of the newly displaced are living in camps, some of them transitory
and makeshift and in need of protection.

Anbar and Baghdad, Babylon and Najaf are home
to the largest numbers of newly displaced. Priority needs as summer
arrives are for food, water, sanitation, shelter assistance,
kitchen sets, stoves and basic health services.

 

IOM is carrying out emergency distributions of food and non-food
items as well as providing clean water and medical assistance.
However, funds are needed to continue providing assistance
including medical evacuations, the rehabilitation of water and
sewage plants and networks as well as health care facilities.

More than one million people are displaced in
Iraq as a result of decades of conflict with at least 203,000 of
them particularly vulnerable and in need of humanitarian
assistance. Most urgent however, are the needs of those displaced
since late February.

“Unfortunately, we don’t see an
end to these displacements in the near future. Conditions are
extremely difficult for many of those displaced. – it is a
crisis situation. We are working hard to get aid to the people, but
we need to have much more in resources to match the scale of the
problem,” said Rafiq Tschannen, chief of IOM Iraq mission,
which is working closely with the Ministry of Displacement and
Migration, the UN and non-governmental organizations.

For further information, please contact:

Jemini Pandya

IOM Geneva

Tel: + 41 22 717 9486/+ 41 79 217 3374

Rafiq Tschannen

Email: "mailto:rtschannen@iom.int" target="_blank" title=
"">rtschannen@iom.int