Northern Iraq — February 21, 2008 — The humanitarian crisis in Iraq continues- current estimates are that there are two million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Iraq since the conflict began. Earlier this month, IRD board members Rev. John Deckenback and Jack Gilbert visited the United Nations' High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)-funded camps served by IRD in Northern Iraq to get a sense of the problem, while earlier this week, U.N. Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie met with IRD and other NGOs working in Iraq with the UN to also address the issue.

Jolie had the opportunity to ask program staff about the ability of the UNHCR to respond to needs in the field. In an interview following the meeting and the visit, she emphasized the scope of the problem.

"This is the time to really discuss and and try to get these communities back together," Jolie told CNN. "[There needs to be an] understanding of where the people are and what they need, making sure the schools are being built, making sure [there's] electricity, water, that all needs are being met."

IRD board members had the opportunity to do see first-hand the complex needs of locals, IDPs and refugees during their visit.

Board members visited the UNHCR camp in Girdaseen, a tented camp for IDPs in the Akre district of Dohuk. The camp was established in early 2006 to house a number of families displaced by violence and threats in Mosul city. The families are from the Harkki (Kurdish) tribe, and although their ancestral homelands are nearby they were not welcomed back, as they were perceived to have sided with Saddam’s regime when they left for Mosul in 1991. There are now 249 families living in Girdaseen.

IRD has built portions of the water system for the camp, completed December 2007, and also conducts a community sanitation campaign to generate income for vulnerable IDPs. IRD’s Mobile Medical Units visit the site on a regular basis to provide essential primary health care services, including vaccination. During the visit the board members witnessed an ongoing clean-up campaign and visited a hygiene promotion session targeting women.

Deckenback and Gilbert also visited the Muqabli refugee camp, housing about 50 Syrian Kurd families that fled western Syria in 2003 following an outbreak of anti-Kurdish violence. IRD has supported the camp through the provision of kerosene, water tankering and garbage collection, and have also recently renovated the communal bath houses. The overall situation facing these families is poor, although some have been resettled by the Kurdistan Regional Government in newly built houses. Those that remain in the camp retain the unlikely hope of resettlement in a third country.

In addition to the UNHCR camps, Deckenback and Gilbert visited other IRD programs serving Iraqi IDPs in the village of Zanganan, Sei Jei, and the Fayda sub-district of Sumel.

Jolie has been working to help draw attention to both the IDP and refugee problem and has called for more support for UNHCR. In August of 2007, Jolie first visited Iraq and Syria to talk directly to Iraqis about their plight.

IRD also works with the UNHCR in Amman, Jordan; the Education Mobilization Team program in Jordan is an integral part of their current “Back to School” campaign to ensure that all Iraqi refugee children have access to education in the coming year. The EMT project builds upon the success of IRD’s Strategic Health Support (SHS) program, on target to reach 36,000 refugee families in Amman over the next year with volunteer-driven in-home health care services and referrals to partner primary health care clinics.