UN warns of five million Iraqi refugees-Half of displaced people have no access to food aid

[babylonsister]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2640418.ece

UN warns of five million Iraqi refugees
Half of displaced people have no access to food aid
By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 10 June 2007

snip//

Across Iraq, millions of people are looking for safer places to live, and not finding them. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) reported last week that 4.2 million Iraqis have been forced out of their homes.

There are also ominous signs that the four-month-old US security plan for Baghdad is failing to reduce the level of violence despite an extra 17,000 US troops in the capital.

"The situation in Iraq continues to worsen," the UNHCR announced, "with more than two million Iraqis now believed to be displaced inside the country and another 2.2 million sheltering in neighbouring states."

The Iraqi refugee crisis is now surpassing in numbers anything ever seen in the Middle East, including the expulsion or flight of the Palestinians in 1948.

Since the sectarian pogroms that followed the destruction of the Shia shrine in Samarra in February 2006, an estimated 850,000 people have been displaced within Iraq, including 15,000 Palestinians who have nowhere to go.

"Individual governorates inside Iraq are becoming overwhelmed by the needs of the displaced," said an UNHCR spokesperson, Jennifer Pagonis. "At least 10 out of 18 governorates have closed their borders, or are denying access to new arrivals."

more...

[PeaceNikki]

1. It's disgusting

"The daily threat of death or injury, combined with the social catastrophe facing the Iraqi people, has caused at least two million to flee the country. An estimated 1.9 million Iraqis are considered to be internally displaced, forced from their homes by violence or poverty.

The majority of those who have left the country are people who had some financial means. Close to 40 percent of Iraq’s middle class—university-educated professionals such as doctors, teachers, engineers and managers—is believed to have gone into exile, rather than continue to risk their lives in Iraq’s cities and towns. Iraqis now make the largest number of asylum applications in the world.
"
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/apr2007/refu-a23.shtml

[Double T]

2. This is a great human tragedy and disaster of Hitleresque proportions.

bush and cheney, look what the two of you have done!

[PeaceNikki]

3. How many refugees has the US taken in? Come on... guess.

466

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-sweden_bd_jun03,1,6948357.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
"More than 2 million Iraqis have fled their homeland since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Most are living in Syria, Jordan and other Middle Eastern nations. Now, a growing number are heading toward Europe, especially Sweden, which for decades has offered refugees and asylum-seekers government aid and generous family-reunification plans. Nearly 9,000 Iraqis, more than half of all those who arrived in Europe from the war-torn country in 2006, made their way to Sweden. European officials estimate that as many as 40,000 more Iraqis may reach the continent this year.

Since the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the United States has taken in 466 Iraqi refugees. Washington has been reluctant to accept them for fear that doing so would run counter to U.S. policy to one day return them to a secure Iraq. There also have been concerns about mistakenly granting asylum to militants."

[ninkasi]

4. Happy now, Chimp?

Have you caused enough death and suffering yet? How much more does the world have to suffer, in order to sate your spoiled brat ego? I can't believe that the America I was born in 64 years ago, the America I grew up loving and respecting, has come to this. To add insult to injury, the twit likes to boast that he has made the world safer. What a monumental, complete sociopath he is.

[kurth]

5. Mission Accomplished

[bonito]

6. K&R for humanity

Or, well it's only them, mind you...

[PeaceNikki]

7. The administration has pledged... a sum the U.S. military spends in Iraq in less than two hours

The Bush administration has pledged $18 million -- a sum the U.S. military spends in Iraq in less than two hours -- to United Nations relief efforts for Iraqi refugees this year.