BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraqis are fleeing their homes in droves and the number of displaced within the war-torn country has reached almost 2.3 million, most of them women and children, the Iraqi Red Crescent said.
The organisation's latest report, obtained by AFP on Monday, said 368,479 people had left their homes to escape sectarian violence in September alone.
This brings the total number of internally displaced Iraqis to 2,299,425 since the US-led invasion in 2003, it said, adding that most of these urgently need basic care.
At least another two million Iraqis have fled abroad -- mainly to neighbouring countries, according to UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) figures published in August.
Children make up 65.3 percent of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) and women account for 18.6 percent of the total, the Iraqi Red Crescent report said.
Most internally displaced Iraqis -- 63.6 percent or 1,462,468 people -- are in 16 camps within Baghdad province, the report said. Of these, 88.3 percent are women and children.
"In addition to their plight as being displaced, the majority suffer from disease, poverty and malnutrition," it said.
"Children do not attend schools and are being sheltered in tents, abandoned government buildings with no water or electricity, mosques, churches, or with relatives."
The bulk of families who have fled their homes have also lost their incomes and are battling to find work.
"Most IDP families are poor with very limited income, which makes it impossible to meet the basic needs (food, clothing, shelter and fuel) of its members. These families are increasingly becoming dependent on humanitarian aid," the report said.
Children face difficulties in transferring their official documents to schools in their new neighbourhoods, which are becoming overcrowded because of the influx.
"This is in addition to the psycho-social problems resulting from becoming displaced."
The trigger for the exodus was the bombing of a Shiite shrine in the holy city of Samarra in February 2006, which unleashed a wave of sectarian violence that has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis.
"Thousands of Shiites had fled Sunni areas and vice versa. Christians also fled from Sunni areas to Kurdistan.
"These recent events, in addition to decades of severe oppression and sanctions fractured the integrity of the civil order and society in Iraq," the report said.
In September, the northern Kurdish region, long regarded as a safe haven for fleeing Iraqis because of its relative stability, was also affected by violence.
"Both the Iranians and Turkish military were bombarding the border villages with artillery shells for days and weeks," the report said, referring to barrages aimed at camps of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
"Thousands of villagers left their homes and migrated inland for fear of their lives thus compounding the refugee problems in Kurdistan."
The majority of displaced in the Shiite-majority south of Iraq, as to be expected, are Shiites, while Sunni Arabs account for most of the IDPs in the predominantly Sunni north.
"Arbil and Dahuk governorates (in the Kurdish region) have witnessed more population movement among the Christians," the report said.
The exodus of Iraqis from their homes is the largest population movement in the Middle East since Palestinians left the new state of Israel in 1948.
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