consider these two articles ...
source:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/30/2860/Iraq: One in Seven Joins Human Tide Spilling into Neighbouring CountriesTwo thousand Iraqis are fleeing their homes every day. It is the greatest mass exodus of people ever in the Middle East and dwarfs anything seen in Europe since the Second World War. Four million people, one in seven Iraqis, have run away, because if they do not they will be killed. Two million have left Iraq, mainly for Syria and Jordan, and the same number have fled within the country.
Yet, while the US and Britain express sympathy for the plight of refugees in Africa, they are ignoring - or playing down- a far greater tragedy which is largely of their own making.0730 08
The US and Britain may not want to dwell on the disasters that have befallen Iraq during their occupation but the shanty towns crammed with refugees springing up in Iraq and neighbouring countries are becoming impossible to ignore. <skip>
and this one ...
source:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/31/2887/Children Hardest Hit by Humanitarian Crisis in IraqThe number of Iraqi children who are born underweight or suffer from malnutrition has increased sharply since the US-led invasion, according to a report by Oxfam and a network of about 80 aid agencies.
The report describes a nationwide catastrophe, with around 8 million Iraqis - almost a third of the population - in need of emergency aid. Many families have dropped out of the food rationing system because they have been displaced by fighting and sectarian conflict. Others suffer from the collapse in basic services caused by the exodus of doctors and hospital staff. <skip>
“The fighting and weak institutions mean there are severe limits on what humanitarian work can be carried out,” said Jeremy Hobbs, the director of Oxfam International, yesterday as the report, Rising to the Humanitarian Challenge in Iraq, was published. <skip>
At least 4 million Iraqis depend on food assistance, but a third of those who have had to flee their homes in the last year cannot get subsidised rations because they are not registered in a new home. The report urges the government to give the homeless temporary identity cards to allow them to get food.
It calls on western donor governments, which have shifted money out of humanitarian assistance towards reconstruction, to reverse that trend. Most development projects have been forced to slow down or stop anyway, whereas aid money can be spent effectively - and the need is dire.
Forty-three percent of Iraqis are in “absolute poverty”, partly because of a 50% unemployment rate. Basic services in 2003 were poor after a decade of sanctions and under-investment by the Saddam Hussein regime. But they have worsened since. The number of Iraqis without access to adequate water supplies, for example, has risen from 50% in 2003 to 70% now.
Eighty percent lack effective sanitation, and diarrhoeal diseases have increased. Most homes in Baghdad and other cities have only two hours of electricity a day.
Children are suffering the most, with 92% showing learning difficulty because of the pervasive climate of fear. More than 800,000 have dropped out of school, because they now live in camps for the displaced or because schools have had to be taken over to shelter the homeless.
Around 40% of Iraq’s teachers, water engineers, medical staff and other professionals have left the country since 2003.
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