New report highlights growing number of IDPs

A new international report says that on Mar. 20 there were some 2,778,305 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Iraq. Hitherto the figure of 2.2 million IDPs in Iraq had been widely publicized. The 21-page report -- produced by IDP Working Group members consisting of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), other UN Agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) -- is based on data gathered by the IDP Working Group, and information from the Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration, the Kurdistan Regional Government, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other NGOs. It said 1,212,108 had been displaced between the fall of Saddam's regime and February 2006, when a revered Shia shrine in Samarra was blown up, and that a further 1,566,197 were displaced in 2006 and 2007 when the country was engulfed in sectarian violence. No large-scale returns have been noted, the report said. "The improvement in the country's security situation is only on the surface; the root problems still exist and any improvements could be reversed at any moment," said Saad al-Hadithi, a political science lecturer at the University of Baghdad. "The displaced fear returning to their homes and neighborhoods without guarantees of protection from the government," al-Hadithi told IRIN. To ease the problem, the Ministry of Displacement and Migration said it is planning to build an as yet unspecified number of residential compounds nationwide with access to health care and education facilities. "This is an indication that the government is not serious enough about getting these families to return to their homes -- it's just a postponement of the crisis," al-Hadithi said.