Attachments
Baghdad, 17 April, 2015 - IOM has distributed 150 life-saving family non-food item (NFI) kits yesterday to recently internally displaced people (IDPs) in Al A'dwaniya, Mahmudiya District, in the south of Baghdad Governorate. The families were displaced by continued violence from Ramadi, Anbar Governorate, within the past week.
In April IOM conducted assessments of new displacement in Baghdad and identified areas including Al A'dwaniya where emergency response assistance is required. The joint distribution was carried out in cooperation with UNICEF, the UN World Food Program (WFP) and WFP’s NGO partner, Mercy Hands. The NFI kits included blankets, towels, hygiene kits, plastic sheets, buckets, bottles of water and food items boxes.
From 26 March - 9 April, the IOM Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) identified a net increase of over 4,100 displaced individuals in Baghdad governorate. These populations originate from Anbar (2,400 individuals) followed by Baghdad (1,092) and Salah al Din (636 individuals.)
Samee’a Ali, a woman displaced from Ramadi said: “We left Anbar yesterday. We received death threats. The 34 members of my family, including my siblings, left the city. We left together and fled to save our lives. We took shared cars from Ramadi to the edge of Al A’dwaniya. We have nothing, no place to stay and our children have respiratory problems from the dust they breathed on the way.” Mohammed Abdualla, displaced four days ago, also from Ramadi, Anbar, also thanked the agencies for their rapid response. “We fled when we heard that ISIL were close. We brought our documents, but did not have time to bring anything else. We left with only the clothes we were wearing. Here in Al A'dwaniya people gave me bricks and helped to me to build a small room where my family and I are now living. We are nine people living in a small area.”
Baghdad Provincial Council Member, Ali Thamir Sarheed, is also the head of the Committee for Displaced People in the South. Mr. Sarheed attended the distribution.
“These organizations and host communities were able to quickly provide what the government could not provide in a short time. We are coordinating to provide additional assistance to these families in the coming months,” he said.
IOM Iraq Chief of Mission Thomas Lothar Weiss said: “IOM is pleased to provide assistance to these IDPs who have fled horrific violence and arrived in Baghdad with nothing. IOM will continue to respond to displacement in cooperation with the Government, local authorities and partners. We thank local authorities who facilitate our DTM data collection, which guides IOM’s emergency response. We need their help to identify, access and serve the most vulnerable and respond to a crisis of this scale.”
WFP Deputy Country Director in Iraq Uma Thapa said: “Strong cooperation between UN agencies has made it possible to assist internally displaced Iraqis in need of food assistance who are suffering due to the ongoing crisis.”
Deputy Head of Mercy Hands, Khalid Jawad said: “We changed our method of distribution for this emergency response. We joined our kit with other organizations as an easier solution for the families to receive what they need.”
IOM Iraq’s most recent DTM identified 2,683,668 Iraqis (447,278 families) internally displaced country-wide from January 2014 through 26 March 2015. Updated DTM figures will be released next week. The most recent IOM Iraq DTM dataset, Dashboards, and Dynamic Displacement Map, in addition to previous DTM products, can be found at: http://iomiraq.net/dtm-page
For more information please contact Sandra Black at IOM Iraq, Tel: +964 751 234 2550, Email: sblack@iom.int
About IOM Iraq
Since beginning operations in Iraq in 2003, IOM has built a strong network of staff, offices and logistics. Through coordination with the Iraqi government, donors and UN agencies, IOM Iraq delivered life-saving aid to more than one million people across all of Iraq’s 18 governorates in 2014.
IOM Iraq provides a range of emergency response services: non-food item kits, shelter, livelihoods assistance, primary health care and psychosocial assistance to help displaced persons regain dignity in their lives. IOM Iraq also provides technical cooperation including government capacity building on migration issues. With a presence on the ground in all governorates, IOM staff has been on the front lines of the humanitarian response to this unprecedented crisis in Iraq.
About IOM Established in 1951, IOM is the leading inter-governmental organization in the field of migration and works closely with governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental partners. IOM works to help ensure the orderly and humane management of migration, to promote international cooperation on migration issues, to assist in the search for practical solutions to migration problems and to provide humanitarian assistance to migrants in need, including refugees and internally displaced people.
Web: http://iomiraq.net
Twitter: @IOMIraq