OXFAM: Violence Masking Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq

[babylonsister]

Violence Masking Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq: Oxfam
by AFP staffwriters


AMMAN - Oxfam warned in a report Monday that unabated violence in Iraq is masking a humanitarian crisis that has worsened since the US-led invasion in 2003, putting at risk almost eight million Iraqis.

“While horrific violence dominates the lives of millions of ordinary people inside Iraq, another kind of crisis, also due to the impact of war, has been slowly unfolding,” said the report by international relief agency Oxfam and a coalition of Iraqi non-governmental organisations. 0730 04

According to the 45-page report released in Amman, almost eight million Iraqis are in need of immediate emergency aid with children the hardest hit by worsening conditions. An estimated “43 percent of Iraqis suffer from ‘absolute poverty’.”

“Children are hit the hardest by the decline of living standards. Child malnutrition rates have risen from 19 percent before the US-led invasion in 2003 to 28 percent now,” it said.

Among the eight million Iraqis in dire need of assistance are more than two million who are displaced within the country and more than two million who have sought refuge in neighbouring Jordan and Iraq.

Many of those fleeing are professionals whose exodus leaves Iraqi services in an ever more precarious state, said the report by Oxfam and the NGO Co-ordination Committee in Iraq (NCCI).

“The brain drain’ that Iraq is experiencing is further stretching already inadequate public services, as thousands of medical staff, teachers, water engineers, and other professionals are forced to leave the country,” it said.

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http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/30/2864/