Month: December 2006

UN agencies might not be known for their elegant prose, but when things are this bad the plain facts are more compelling than journalists’ waffle:

Iraq is haemorrhaging. The humanitarian crisis which the international community had feared in 2003 is now unfolding. The massive displacement has emerged quietly and without fanfare but the numbers affected are in excess of what many agencies had predicted in 2003.

Since the February 2006 Samarra bombings UNHCR, as Cluster Coordinator for displaced groups inside Iraq, estimates some 425,000 Iraqis to have been recently displaced. In addition, some two to three thousand Iraqis are leaving per day via neighbouring countries as the extent of the tragedy becomes obvious. UNHCR estimates that there are at least 1.6 million Iraqis internally displaced with at least another 1.6 – 1.8 million(4) in neighbouring states.

[[UNHCR](http://reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/LSGZ-6W2F7S?OpenDocument&rc=3&emid=ACOS-635P5D), via Reliefweb]