KEY POINTS:
The United Nations refugee agency yesterday doubled its funding appeal for Iraq this year to US$123 million ($157 million), saying humanitarian needs continued to mushroom as an estimated 2000 people flee violence each day.
Most of the revised appeal, up from US$60 million in January, will be used to provide shelter, food, healthcare, education and other emergency services to Iraqis who cross into neighbouring countries.
Syria and Jordan are already struggling to host 2 million Iraqis who fled before and since the 2003 US-led invasion, while another 2 million people are uprooted within Iraq, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
"Massive displacement of Iraqis externally and internally continues unabated, causing a great deal of suffering and uncertainty," Radhouane Nouicer, director of UNHCR's Middle East and North Africa bureau, said.
The agency had received $67 million towards its initial appeal, including $17 million from the US, and was seeking more from donors.
"At least one Iraqi in seven is displaced and UNHCR estimates the number of those newly displaced at 2000 per day," the UNHCR said.
"Thousands of Iraqis approaching UNHCR are the victims of torture, sexual and gender-based violence, car bombings, or other violent attacks and are in urgent need of medical care."
Many Iraqi children had been out of school for two to three years, raising the prospect of "potential emergence of a generation of uneducated Iraqi youth", the UNHCR warned.
The UNHCR has set a target of resettling 20,000 of the most vulnerable Iraqi refugees to third countries this year.
- Reuters
