UN warns of five million Iraqi refugees

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This video is called Nir Rosen on [US] responsibility for the Iraqi refugee crisis.

From the YouTube text of the video:

(This is a clip from Rosen’s speech before the New America Foundation the day after his article was the cover story of the New York Times magazine on Sunday, May 13, 2007).

From NewAmerica.net:

While the public gaze is fixated on the reasons for and success of the Iraq war, few policy analysts, commentators, and journalists are paying attention to the largest refugee problem in the Middle East since 1948.

From British daily The Independent:

UN warns of five million Iraqi refugees

Half of displaced people have no access to food aid

By Patrick Cockburn

Published: 10 June 2007 …

Across Iraq, millions of people are looking for safer places to live, and not finding them.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) reported last week that 4.2 million Iraqis have been forced out of their homes.

There are also ominous signs that the four-month-old US security plan for Baghdad is failing to reduce the level of violence despite an extra 17,000 US troops in the capital.

“The situation in Iraq continues to worsen,” the UNHCR announced, “with more than two million Iraqis now believed to be displaced inside the country and another 2.2 million sheltering in neighbouring states.”

The Iraqi refugee crisis is now surpassing in numbers anything ever seen in the Middle East, including the expulsion or flight of the Palestinians in 1948. …

The UN Assistance Mission to Iraq and the World Food Programme estimate that “at least 47 per cent of the displaced have no access to official food distribution channels”.

The number of Iraqis taking refuge in other countries continues to climb, with 1.4 million in Syria, 750,000 in Jordan, 80,000 in Egypt and 200,000 in the Gulf region.

Syria alone is receiving 30,000 Iraqis a month.

The arrival of so many extra people in Damascus has led to a steep rise in the price of food.

Iraqi refugees in Jordan don’t have refugee status: here.