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UN mission appeals for aid to massive displaced in Iraq

Xinhua, April 19, 2015 Adjust font size:

More than 90,000 people are fleeing violence in Iraq's western province of Anbar and need urgent humanitarian assistance, UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) said in a statement on Sunday.

The security situation in Ramadi deteriorated a week ago when IS militants carried out attacks and captured Albu Farraj area in northern side of Euphrates River, which separate the area from the city of Ramadi.

A few days later, the extremist militants expanded and captured more areas in eastern and central of the city.

Fierce battles forced dozens of thousands of families to flee their homes and resorted to other cities, mainly to Baghdad and settled in predominantly Sunni districts in south and west of the capital.

"Humanitarian agencies are rushing to provide assistance to more than 90,000 people fleeing clashes in Anbar. Our top priority is delivering life-saving assistance to people who are fleeing. Food, water and shelter are highest on the list of priorities," the statement quoted Lise Grande, the humanitarian coordinator for UNAMI, as saying.

It said that "civilians are fleeing Ramadi, Albu Farraj, Albu Aetha, Albu Thiyab and are moving toward Khaldiya, Ameriya al Faullujah, and Baghdad, many of them on foot."

According to UN figures, "at least 2.7 million Iraqis have been displaced since January 2014, including 400,000 from Anbar province, making the Iraq crisis one of the most complex humanitarian emergencies in the world today," the statement said.

Grande said that the humanitarian agencies are doing what they can to help civilians, "but the humanitarian operation in Iraq is severely underfunded."

The statement said that in the next weeks and months "unless funding is received, 60 percent of programmes supported by humanitarian partners will be curtailed or shut-down."

It warned that the impact will be on the civilian victims of the violence, which will be "catastrophic."

The IS group has seized parts of Iraq's largest province of Anbar and tried to advance toward Baghdad, but several counter attacks by security forces and Shiite militias have pushed them back.

The security situation in Iraq has been drastically deteriorated since last June, when bloody clashes broke out between Iraqi security forces and the IS militants. Endit