Internal Displacement of Iraqis said to be 'Human Tragedy Unprecedented in Iraq's History'

By Lee Russ

Tuesday, August 07, 2007 at 08:09 PM

According to the blog Iraq Slogger, a recent report from the Iraqi Red Cresent calls the displacement of Iraqis within the country a "Human Tragedy Unprecedented in Iraq's History."

According to the blog:

• the number of internally displaced people (IDP's) in Iraq has quadrupled since January and is up eight times from a year ago.
• many IDP's take refuge in the house of extended family or a friend, while others squat illegally in abandoned houses, live on the streets or in makeshift mud huts and tin shacks; tens of thousands of others live in tent cities.
• the province with the greatest number of IDP's is Ninevah (Mosul area), with 239,547, followed by Baghdad, with 196,227.

The full report isn't readily available, but can be ordered through the blog. An apparently different report from Oxfam duscussed on the Associated Content web site adds more grim info:

• 1 in 3 Iraqis are in a desperate humanitarian situation, having trouble meeting their basic humanitarian needs for water, food, sanitation, or shelter
• 4 million Iraqis (15% of the population) regularly can not buy enough to eat
• 70% of Iraqis do not have adequate water supplies
• more than 2 million people have been displaced inside Iraq
• an additional 2 million Iraqis have become refugees predominantly in Syria and Jordan

The full version of that report is available, here