In 2006, Iraq has witnessed increasing political fragmentation driven by insurgency and crime, with factional violence escalating sharply throughout the Centre and the South of Iraq. Human rights violations increased both quantitatively and qualitatively, as brutal violence against official targets and civilian populations increased dramatically through the year.

The bombing in Samara in late February 2006 and its immediate aftermath of retaliatory acts signalled a dramatic change in the nature of violence. Since then, the systematic targeting of civilians through intimidation, acts of terror and factional violence have deliberately uprooted and expelled ethno-religious groups from their areas of residence, consolidating of homogenous areas within the country and changing the nature of population displacement throughout the country.

Palestinian children stranded in the isolated Rweished refugee camp at the Iraq-Jordan border [Photo: UNHCR/Short]

Iraqi people are now leaving their homes to other parts of the country or across international borders. Forced population movements of the three main ethno-religious groups -- Kurds, Sunnis and Shi’as -- are leading to the emergence of progressively more homogenous regions, but other ethnic and religious minorities are alsofinding increasingly difficult to live peacefully in today’s Iraq.

Some 440,000 Iraqis have been displaced by new waves of violence and military operations since February 2006, based on estimates by Iraq’s Ministry of Displacement and Migration (MoDM), the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and partner organizations. Another estimated 1.6 million Iraqis are sheltered in neighbouring states, with this influx having steadily accelerated in 2006.

This includes some 500,000 Iraqis in Syria, another 500,000 to 700,000 believed to be in Jordan and tens of thousands more in Turkey, Lebanon, Iran, Egypt, and the Gulf States. In addition, a significant number of Iraqis have fled to Europe. Population movements show no sign of abating.

The new waves of violence and the deteriorating humanitarian situation have exacted a particularly high toll on Iraq’s refugee community, currently composed of some 43,293 individuals of Iranian, Turkish, Syrian, Palestinian and Sudanese origin throughout Iraq, as well as over 2,089 asylum-seekers who arrived after the fall of the former regime. Some of them, particularly Palestinian, Syrian and Ahwazi (Iranian Arab) refugees have been deliberately targeted as part of the new wave of factional and politically motivated violence through acts of discrimination and brutal attacks.

With the CERF grant, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Jordan will, in collaboration with a wide range of implementing partners, provide assistance to 20,600 Iraqi and 500 Palestinian refugees who have fled from Iraq and temporarily settled in Amman and the Ruwayshed refugee camp. Joint inter-agency participatory assessment of the Iraqi population in Jordan have ascertained a number of alarming trends, including a high percentage of vulnerable female-headed households as well as an increase in the number and severity of cases of sexual and gender-based violence.

Urgent humanitarian assistance to the urban refugee population will include emergency assistance to extremely vulnerable individuals; provision of basic medical care, distribution of non-food items, mental health and community-based interventions, as well as counselling and assistance to victims of domestic violence/SGBV. Assistance to the Ruwayshed refugee camp pouplation will include immediate winterisation of shelters, improvement of security features, food, and medical services.

[Last update: 20 December 2006]

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