8 Million Iraqis Need Emergency Aid

Almost 2,000 Iraqis are fleeing their homes every day and eight million Iraqis are in need of immediate emergency aid

"Iraqis are suffering from a growing lack of food, shelter, water and sanitation, health care, education, and employment," said the groups.

The report, entitled "Rising to the humanitarian challenge in Iraq", said the ongoing violence was masking a humanitarian crisis that had worsened since the 2003 US invasion.

"Forty-three percent of Iraqis suffer from ‘absolute poverty’.

"The situation is particularly hard for families driven from their homes by violence."

UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that four million Iraqis have fled their homes since the invasion.

Half of those who fled sought shelter in other safe areas within their war-torn country while the others sought shelter in neighboring countries.

"The two million internally displaced people have no incomes to rely on and are running out of coping mechanisms," said the report.

The Independent said Monday that nearly 2,000 Iraqis flee their homes every day.

"It is the greatest mass exodus of people ever in the Middle East and dwarfs anything seen in Europe since the Second World War."

Children Hardest-hit

The relief groups said four million Iraqis, 15 percent of the population, can not regularly buy enough to eat.

"The number of Iraqis without access to adequate water supplies has risen from 50 percent to 70 percent since 2003, while 80 percent lack effective sanitation."

They stressed that children were the hardest hit by the worsening conditions in chaos-mired Iraq.

The report said that child malnutrition rates have risen from 19 percent before the US-led invasion to 28 percent.

"Malnutrition amongst children has dramatically increased and basic services, ruined by years of war and sanctions, cannot meet the needs of the Iraqi people," said Jeremy Hobbs, the director of Oxfam International.

Some 92 percent of Iraqi children suffer learning problems, mostly due to the climate of fear, said the report.

It noted that the increasing brain drain because of the prevailing insecurity is leaving the country's services in an ever more precarious state.

"The brain drain that Iraq is experiencing is further stretching already inadequate public services, as thousands of medical staff, teachers, water engineers, and other professionals are forced to leave the country."

Priorities

The report castigated the Iraqi government, international donors and UN agencies for focusing too much on reconstruction and building political institutions while overlooking the everyday needs of ordinary people.

"Political will must be found to improve the emergency support system for the poorest citizens," it said.

"The people of Iraq have a right, enshrined in international law, to material assistance that meets their humanitarian needs, and to protection but this right is being neglected."

The relief groups urged the government to decentralize the distribution of aid to local authorities, reinforce the legal framework for civil society organizations to operate, and double the emergency cash allowances to widows and families.

"Foreign governments with capacity and influence in Iraq, including the USA and the UK, must provide advice and technical assistance to Iraqi government ministries to implement these policies and supply basic services."

The Refugee Council on Monday criticized Britain for failing to take up its responsibility in alleviating the suffering of the Iraqi refugees.

"Along with the rest of the international community, the United Kingdom has a responsibility to refugees displaced by the conflict in Iraq and we are not living up to that responsibility," said chief executive Donna Covey.

Britain has only accepted 1,305 Iraqi refugees while rejected 88 percent of Iraqi asylum applicants last year.

"The scale of the refugee crisis is growing and is now so acute that a change in policy towards Iraqi refugees is surely now imperative," said Covey.

Click to read the report in full