Wednesday, September 26, 2007

IOM: 480,000 registered as internal refugees this year; 88% say forced out for religion; Total now more than 2.25 million internally displaced

Above: A child at an internal displacement camp in Iraq this May. More than 2 million more refugees have fled the country entirely.

Some 480,000 Iraqis have registered as internal refugees or IDPs since the start of 2007, bringing the total in the country to more than 2.25 million, the IOM relief body said on Wednesday.

The IOM, or International Organisation for Migration, said most of those leaving their homes were fleeing sectarian violence -- with 88 percent saying they had moved after being targeted for their religious identity.

"The situation is becoming a displacement catastrophe," Dana Graber Ladek, a Jordan-based official for the IOM, told a news conference. "It is certainly the worst crisis of its type the whole (Middle East) region has seen since 1948."...

According to the IOM, which is based in Geneva and cooperates with U.N. agencies, only a minute portion of all Iraqi IDPs live in tented camps.

Most rent substandard housing in new areas or stay with friends and family. But the pressure on already stretched and understaffed social services was placing new burdens on host communities and causing tensions between them and IDPs.

Read the rest at Reuters/Alternet

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