“A plan for using this money has not been drawn up yet as the committee members are trying to determine how to help these most needy families in such compounds, either by giving them cash or by buying materials,” Zankana said.
The IRCS also said most of the IDPS suffer from disease, poverty and malnutrition. Displaced children do not attend schools and are being sheltered in tents, abandoned government buildings with no water or electricity, mosques, churches, or with relatives.
In its latest December update, IRCS statistics showed that by the end of November 2007 the number of Iraqi IDPs was 2,179,614 – a decrease of 0.5 percent on the October figure.
These figures are slightly less than those of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which says there are 2.2 million IDPs in Iraq.
Over 2.2 million other Iraqis have fled to neighbouring states, particularly Syria (about 1.5 million) and Jordan (up to 750,000).
In November 2007, the UNHCR said continuing violence had forced an average of 60,000 Iraqis from their homes in the preceding few months.
Kurdistan, a safe haven for many Iraqis, recently also became involved in armed conflicts as Iranian and Turkish forces bombarded alleged hideouts of Kurdish rebels in border villages. Thousands of villagers left their homes and migrated to other areas, thus compounding displacement problems in Iraq.
