UN responds to growing Iraqi refugee crisis

26 June 2014

Emergency food programme launched as refugees top half a million in northern Iraq

The UN World Food Programme has launched an emergency operation to feed more than half a million people in northern Iraq.

Before the new wave of displaced Iraqi that followed the upsurge in violence in Mosul in early June, the WFP had already been assisting 240,000 people displaced by conflict in Iraq’s al-Anbar Governorate, as well as more than 180,000 refugees from the conflict in Syria who sought refuge in Iraq.

The WFP, which is funded by voluntary donations, says it needs $88 million for its operations in Iraq from July to December 2014.

The number of Syrian refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) is sometimes estimated at 1m. A spokesman for the KFG told MEED on 26 June that the number of refugees was above 500,000 but below 1m.

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