Thursday, May 31, 2007

822,000 Iraqi´s Displaced Within Iraq

According to a report released on Sunday by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), an estimated 822,810 Iraqis are now displaced within their country.
Muhammad Abdul-Yassin, 39, was forced to leave his home nine months ago after continuous fighting near his home and being targeting by militias. He said he had to change his place of residence more than four times.

“There are no safe places in Iraq. Militants or insurgents find you wherever you are,” Abdul-Yassin said.

“Each time we arrived in a new camp, dozens of other families arrived with us. Most of the places are full to bursting and some of the displaced families are forced to sleep rough on the ground without tents until aid agencies can give them some protection and food. In the camp where we are staying now, we were forced to sleep in the open air for three days and drink dirty water because the aid agencies couldn’t reach us,” he said.
Lets put this in perspective. Iraq´s population was roughly 25 million before the war while the US population is roughly 300 million. That means that 9.8 million Americans would need to be forced from their homes to equal the percentage of Iraqis forced from their homes. That would be the entire cities of Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Dallas.

Still think the war was a good idea? Now ask yourself how you would feel if China came to our shores and the fighting caused all those people to flee. What would you think of China? Now you know what the people of Iraq think of us. Also remember these are the people displaced WITHIN IRAQ. That does not iclude the 2 million that have fled the country all together.

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