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, Babylonand 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 Iraqas 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 or Rafiq Tschannen, Email: rtschannen@iom.int