Roundup: Funds urgently needed to help refugees fleeing Iraqi city of Fallujah: UN

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) on Tuesday said that 17.5 million U.S. dollars are urgently needed to meet the immediate needs of refugees fleeing Fallujah, a UN spokesman told reporters here.

"It says that more than 85,000 people have fled Fallujah and the surrounding area since a government military offensive to retake the city from extremists began on 23 May," Stephane Dujarric, the UN spokesman, said at a daily news briefing here.

"The funds are desperately needed to expand the number of camps and to provide urgently needed relief supplies for displaced people who have already endured months of deprivation and hardship without enough food or medicine," UNHCR Spokesperson Ariane Rummery said in another news briefing. "We also need funds to provide psycho-social and other support to this exhausted and deeply traumatized population."

Of those fleeing Fallujah, about 60,000 fled over a period of just three days last week, on June 15-18, and thousands more could still be planning to leave the city, UN officials said.

Fallujah is a city in the Iraqi province of Al Anbar, located roughly 69 kilometers west of the capital Baghdad on the Euphrates.

Thousands of civilians are caught in the crossfire in and around Fallujah as Iraqi government forces and allied militias are trying to recapture the city.

Iraqi government troops and allied militias have currently been fighting for months to reclaim key cities and towns in Anbar from Islamic State militants, who attempted to advance toward Baghdad after seizing most of Anbar province.

Iraq is currently witnessing a wave of violence since the Islamic State controlled parts of Iraq's northern and western regions in June 2014.

The Iraqi government has established a number of camps for the 60,000 people already displaced in Anbar, and in anticipation of movement from the Fallujah area. The United Nations warned that these facilities are overstretched, with little capacity to absorb more people.

UNHCR and its partners have been providing tents and relief aid to displaced families in Amiriyat al Falluja, Al Khalidiya and Habbaniyah Tourist City -- all within 20 to 30 kilometers of Fallujah.

But with last week's surge in arrivals the overcrowding is growing, the officials said, adding that two and sometimes three families have to share tents in many cases while others sleep in the open, without hygiene facilities.

Rising temperatures, the absence of shade and insufficient clean drinking water are compounding an already desperate situation, they said.

These escalating needs have pushed UNHCR funding into crisis levels. Almost half-way through the year, UNHCR has received only 21 percent of funds needed for Iraq and the surrounding region, said the officials.

Only 127.7 million U.S. dollars were received against the projected needs of 584 million U.S. dollars in 2016, and UNHCR is exhausting available resources in Iraq to deal with the rapid developments in Fallujah, the officials said.

On Monday, Stephen O'Brien, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and UN emergency relief coordinator, released 15 million U.S. dollars from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to provide urgent assistance for people affected by the recent fighting in Fallujah, Dujarric said. Endit