Millennium Prediction on Refugees, Alas, Comes True

Our prediction that a tide of refugees would rise into the northern mountains of Iraq has proved all too true. Those numbers will continue to swell, as long as fighting and instability continue in the north.

In Zawita, a mountain village of 2,000 families, war victims have swelled the population by more than 50,000 people. Other villages have experienced similar influxes, straining the capacities of both civic administrations and the few relief workers remaining. Most humanitarian organizations left the area before the war began.

Our estimate that one of the two main routes of escape would lead into the mountains was based on three key factors: Many of the nation’s population centers are near the Kurdish territory in the mountainous and a flight to Jordan or Syria would involve a long trek across the desert. The third factor is commonality of religion, whereby Sunni Muslims traditionally flee to the nearest area that also is predominantly Sunni.

UNICEF now estimates that the North has 280,000 displaced people. Last week, 8,000 people in Dohuk fled Iraqi artillery and others ran into the mountains from areas along the Iraqi side of the border with the Kurdish territory to escape daily shelling from Iraqi forces.

Marjorie Fowler

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(c) 2003 Millennium Relief & Development Services, vol. 2 no. 31
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