UN refugee agency sounds alarm over crisis in Iraq

[Barrett808]

GENEVA (AFP) - The UN refugee agency has warned donors that it is "distressed" at the lack of an international response to a growing humanitarian crisis in Iraq caused by alarming levels of violence.

"UNHCR officials who just returned from the region warned that we are now facing an even larger humanitarian crisis than we had initially prepared for in 2002 to 2003," Ron Redmond, a spokesman for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said Friday.

Redmond told reporters the agency briefed representatives of donor governments at a meeting in Geneva on Thursday.

"UNHCR said it was increasingly alarmed over the incessant violence in Iraq and distressed over the lack of an international humanitarian response to deal with the massive numbers of people who are being displaced," Redmond added.

There are now hundreds of thousands more displaced than the 600,000 refugees planned for three years ago, yet the agency is" sorely lacking" in funding to deal with the situation inside and outside the country, Redmond said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061103/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestundisplaced

[libodem]

1. Ignore it and it will just go away

Put your head in the sand and pretend all those frightened families aren't running away from the freedom and liberty brought to them by the United States. Why put out any money and resources to help them if they are so ungrateful as to run away from the fine opportunities we have gifted them with. There are 14 new bases in Iraq. A wall around the green zone. A righteous oil pipeline under construction. New schools to send your kids off to. (Hummm, if you are a female child in a religious culture that only wants women to be mothers and stay under a veil, not to worry if you are caught out on the streets, going to school, you might only be raped by American soldiers or stoned to death by you own angry religious leaders.) Roving bands of militias, you say? You don't know who might be at the check points, when your car is stopped and searched? You don't know if the police are on your side or even criminals in stolen uniforms? Just whom do you trust? The American soldiers? Well, don't let a few relatives with their eyes drilled out by electric drills scare you, their faces beaten in until they unrecognizable. Be afraid that when you go to the morgue to identify the body, that your enemies are waiting to nab you and haul you off to beat and torture you to death. No, don't expect, George Walker Bush, to cut loose any funds to make your life on the run any easier. The only good life is the unborn life. Now, if the refuges were fetuses, those would be lives worth saving. Hey, if you don't look like a brine shrimp with nubs for arms and legs don't expect any help from the President of the United States. Once your head pops out of the womb, and a breath of air reaches your lungs your life ain't worth shit.

[donkeyotay]

3. That's the biggest deceit of all - that bush's policies haven't brought

tremendous suffering and will bring much more before the course is run.

"Put your head in the sand and pretend all those frightened families aren't running away from the freedom and liberty brought to them by the United States."

I thought that's why Rush had to attack Michael J. Fox - to distract from the heartlessness of the GOP belief system. Of course, that's nothing compared to the sorrow and suffering we have brought Iraq. It's better to be pissed off at the liberals for despising the president or be going ape shit over tax cuts than to stop for one moment and think about the horror we've wrought.

[libodem]

2. There should be an international response

The US should be leading it. I don't hear of any open doors in America for them?

[libodem]

4. The White House must be surprised by the large humanitarian

crisis since they expected flowers to be thrown at our feet. They don't care about human suffering. Look how they managed Katrina.