Thursday, March 29, 2007
Almost a million in the south are in dire need of help
Humanitarian
(IRIN) - Nearly a million displaced people in Iraq's increasingly volatile southern provinces are in urgent need of food, medicines and municipal services, local officials and NGOs say. Aid workers have called on international humanitarian organizations and the central government to provide more assistance to the growing numbers of displaced in the south of the country. "Najaf, Kerbala and Basra provinces, in particular, are greatly suffering with a continued increase in displacement. There are dozens of families arriving every day at camps for the displaced, causing a lack of essential needs such as food and health care," said Ali Fakhouri, a spokesman of Najaf provincial council. "The past two months were the worst for those families. For security reasons, the delivery of aid has decreased considerably and because of a lack in medicines in the region's hospitals and inaccessibility to hospitals, children are more vulnerable to diseases," Fakhouri added. "Diarrhea is common among children in displaced groups in the south."
There are dozens of families arriving every day at camps for the displaced, causing a lack of essential needs such as food and health care. Fakhouri said that nearly 90 percent of the 700,000 internally displaced people in the southern provinces lack essential needs. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), of this total, at least 310,000 arrived there after the bombing on 22 February 2006 of a revered Shia shrine in the northern city of Samarra caused an escalation of sectarian violence. Fakhouri said that unofficial records suggest there are at least 200,000 more displaced people in the southern provinces, bringing the total to nearly a million. The economically poorer southern cities have few jobs to offer this massive influx of people. As such, the displaced are largely unemployed and depend on assistance from aid organisations.
There are dozens of families arriving every day at camps for the displaced, causing a lack of essential needs such as food and health care. Fakhouri said that nearly 90 percent of the 700,000 internally displaced people in the southern provinces lack essential needs. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), of this total, at least 310,000 arrived there after the bombing on 22 February 2006 of a revered Shia shrine in the northern city of Samarra caused an escalation of sectarian violence. Fakhouri said that unofficial records suggest there are at least 200,000 more displaced people in the southern provinces, bringing the total to nearly a million. The economically poorer southern cities have few jobs to offer this massive influx of people. As such, the displaced are largely unemployed and depend on assistance from aid organisations.
Compounding the health problems the displaced face in Iraq's southern provinces is a lack of access to food. According to Ministry of Trade officials, the continuous movement of families to southern areas has caused delays in the delivery of food rations (distributed as aid by the Ministry of Trade to help poor families registered by the government). The result is many newly displaced people do not receive food rations "for a period of time because of technical arrangements", said Farhan. Based on information from Najaf provincial council, at least 120,000 people in the province have not received their food rations after fleeing their homes in Baghdad or neighboring cities.
Labels: Basra, IDPs, Kerbala, Najaf
