Iraq - The fall of Mosul – Iraq’s second city – to Armed Opposition Groups (AOGs) this week displaced an estimated half a million people. IOM is now racing to procure and distribute urgently needed relief, not only to the affected population of Mosul, but also to thousands of other internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Anbar governorate cities of Fallujah, Ramadi and Heet, which have borne the brunt of the fighting over the past six months.

“Insecurity is spreading across the whole of Iraq and we foresee a protracted humanitarian crisis,” said Mandie Alexander, IOM’s emergency coordinator in Baghdad. “It is getting worse by the hour and we do not have the necessary funding to respond adequately,” she added.

IOM is urgently calling on donors for USD 15 million to procure and distribute a total of 30,000 non-food relief items and 5,000 tents, and to implement its displacement tracking and needs assessment matrix (DTM).

IOM is expecting needs to increase as the fighting forces more people to flee.  The AOGs are moving rapidly towards Baghdad and have now taken the cities of Tikrit and Samarra. Reports from the field suggest that an estimated 40,000 people have also fled these cities.

IOM leads the technical working group on migration data collection through the DTM and provides information to other humanitarian clusters, especially those involved in protection, education and logistics. 

IOM has 12 rapid assessment and response (RAR) staff working in Mosul and four in Tikrit, who are assessing the situation on the ground and providing updates on displacement and the immediate needs of the IDPs.  But their ability to gather the most up-to-date information is constrained by lack of access to the worst affected areas due to the deteriorating security situation.

IOM staff report that the hospitals in Mosul are no longer accessible and that schools and mosques have been converted into makeshift clinics to tend to the injured and chronically ill. Families in the western districts of Mosul have limited access to drinkable water and across the city most families have only a few hours of electricity a day. Since 9^th June there has been a ban on the use of civilian vehicles and a city-wide curfew.

For more information please contact

Mandie Alexander
IOM Iraq
Email: malexander@iom.int
Tel. +9647826504200