Humanitarian groups have criticised the United States administration for failing to pull its weight in providing for up to 3 million Iraqis displaced from their homes, with the official quota for the number of Iraqi refugees to be allowed into the US this year standing at just 500.
Aid organisations report a rapidly mounting crisis of refugees inside Iraq and in neighbouring countries as thousands flee sectarian violence every day. The United Nations estimates that there are more than 1.5 million Iraqis displaced within the country and a similar number living as refugees in Jordan, Syria and elsewhere.
The US administration laid down the quota of 500 Iraqi refugees for 2007 last September. It has a further 20,000 refugee places that are unspecified and could be allocated to Iraqis, but the administration has failed to provide funds even to meet its identified programme of 50,000 refugees from specific regions in 2007. So far only 41,000 places have been funded.
Robert Carey, head of resettlement at the New York-based International Rescue Committee, said that a long-term refugee crisis was being created, with many of those fleeing so traumatised that they had vowed never to return to Iraq.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1981511,00.html
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