About eight million Iraqis -- nearly a third of the population -- are without water, sanitation, food and shelter and need emergency aid, a report by two major relief agencies says.
Oxfam and the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Coordination Committee in Iraq have issued a briefing paper that says violence in Iraq is masking a humanitarian crisis that has worsened since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
"Eight million people are in urgent need of emergency aid; that figure includes over two million who are displaced within the country, and more than two million refugees. Many more are living in poverty, without basic services, and increasingly threatened by disease and malnutrition," said the relief agencies' report. The report found that about 43 percent of Iraq's population endure "absolute poverty," and that more than half "are now without work."
Child malnutrition rates have jumped from 19 percent before the invasion four years ago to 28 percent now, and there are two million internally displaced people, many of whom have no or little access to food rations.
The number of Iraqis "without access to adequate water supplies" is 70 percent, up from 50 percent since 2003. The country continues to suffer a "brain drain."
[CNN]
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