Call for humanitarian corridors to reach those displaced in Iraq

Geneva, June 28 (IANS/WAM) The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has warned that aid workers could not reach tens of thousands of Iraqis displaced by the violence rocking the country and urged the establishment of humanitarian corridors to access those in need.

The IOM said Friday it, along with the UN's World Food Programme and children's agency Unicef, had been able to distribute relief to around 10,000 people in Iraq this month.

"But that is a drop in the bucket when you consider the tens of thousands of people who have been displaced by the ongoing fighting in Mosul, Tal Afar, Tikrit and on the road south to Baghdad," Mandie Alexander, IOM Baghdad Emergency Coordinator, said in a statement.

"We cannot accurately assess their needs or deliver aid to the vast majority because of the lack of security and hundreds of road blocks. The road blocks, established by the government and armed opposition groups (AOGs) also stop people from reaching aid distribution points. We cannot reach them and they cannot reach us," Alexander said at a donor briefing at the IOM headquarters in Geneva.

The migration body's spokesperson said Iraq is no longer the country that one knew and the Iraq one knew would never exist again.

"It is now a totally different country. We have turned back the clock to the emergencies of 2003 and 2006 and what we now have is a very complex humanitarian emergency with huge obstacles to overcome," she added.

--IANS/WAM

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