"Worse than 1948"

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reports that Iraqis fleeing the war raging around them are running out of options as provinces within the country are refusing to allow internally displaced refugees entry, citing their lack of resources to adequately accommodate the refugees as a reason. With no end in sight to the turmoil and displacement, Andrew Harper, the head of the UNHCR Iraq Support Unit warned that Iraq was becoming “a pressure cooker.”

Now, nearing five years of warfare and invasion, the humanitarian crisis is coming to a head. Nearly 5 million people, in a population of 27 million, have fled the violence of George Bush’s vanity war.

Nearly 18% of the country has fled into diaspora


· Internally Displpaced.........1,225,000
· Syria..................................1,400,000
· Jordan..................................750,000
· Gulf states.............................200,000
· Egypt.................................... 100,000
· Iran.........................................54,000
· Lebanon..................................40,000
· Turkey.....................................10,000

"We are seeing an increasing number of governorates closing their borders or restricting entry to new arrivals," Mr. Harper said in an interview with the BBC. “And so we have a pressure cooker building up inside Iraq - there is no imminent end to the displacement." Governors from as many as 11 of 18 Iraqi provinces have been blocking internally displaced persons (IDPs) entry to their governed territory. If they do get in, they are routinely denied food and education. The local Iraqi authorities are simply overwhelmed and lack the resources to cope with the problems unleashed by the folly and hubris of the little idiot.

It is becoming increasingly more difficult for internally displaced Iraqis (at 2.25 million, there are as many IDPs as there are those who have been lucky enough to flee beyond the borders of Iraq). The possibility for fleeing Iraqis to find food, security and respite from war is increasingly more rare; and the few remaining areas where they can find refuge are intense and over populated.

The humanitarian crisis unfolding in Iraq is the most profound challenge facing the UNHCR and the international community. And a hundred thousand data points per month are added to the aggregate statistics.

The security situation is so dire in some areas that local aid workers have reported they are unable to reach thousands of families, including displaced refugees, due to security considerations.

Mr. Harper voices these concerns at a time when Iraq’s neighboring states have closed their borders to Iraqi refugees, claiming they are simply overwhelmed by the number of refugees they have already accepted, and they can no longer cope with the strain on their limited resources.