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Humanitarian aid being rushed to over 90,000 fleeing clashes in Iraq's Anbar: UN

Xinhua, April 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

Humanitarian agencies are rushing to provide assistance to more than 90,000 people fleeing clashes in Anbar Governorate in Iraq, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters here Monday.

"The priority is delivering life-saving assistance to people who are fleeing, with food, water and shelter highest on the list of priorities," Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.

Civilians are fleeing Ramadi, Albu Farraj, Albu Aetha, and other towns, and are moving towards Khaldiya, Ameriya al Fallujah, as well as Baghdad," he said. "Most of these people are moving on foot."

The World Food Programme (WFP) is distributing rations, sufficient for three days, to more than 41,000 people in Ramadi, and has already distributed rations to more than 8,750 newly displaced people in Baghdad.

Meanwhile, their colleagues at the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) have distributed kits with key relief items to approximately 1,000 families in Ameriyat al Fallujah and Baghdad, with plans to distribute another 2,000 kits in coming days.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has distributed kits in the last few days to cover the immediate needs of 85,000 people, including adult hygiene items and 12 liters of water, said the spokesman.

More than 90,000 people are fleeing fighting in Anbar, the United Nations said Sunday, as the Iraqi government and aid groups struggled to assist the legions of newly displaced.

Pro-government forces have been engaged in intense clashes with Islamic State militants for control of Ramadi, capital of Anbar Gobernorate, some 110 kilometers west of Baghdad.

Internal conflict in Iraq has led to the displacement of at least 2.7 million Iraqis since 2014, according to the United Nations. The numbers have increased dramatically since Islamic State militants overran a large swath of northern Iraq between June and August of last year.

Many of those displaced were Christians, Shiite Muslims and members of the Yazidi sect, all fearing persecution at the hands of Islamic State, an extremist Sunni group. Endite