Thursday, August 21, 2014

IRAQ - The Displaced, 'Iraq, Country of Monsters'

"Displaced Iraqis traumatized by Islamic State, betrayed by neighbors" PBS NewsHour 8/20/2014

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Other victims of the Islamic State in recent weeks include Christians and members of the Yazidi minority.  Most who were lucky enough to escape have flooded the Kurdish -controlled region in Northern Iraq with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Tonight, chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner takes a close look at these newly internally displaced persons, or IDPs, and efforts to contain their suffering.

MARGARET WARNER (NewsHour):  A Boeing 747 touched down in the afternoon heat of Irbil today, carrying 100 tons of United Nations Refugee Agency aid, the first wave of fresh supplies since the U.N. last week announced a heightened level of emergency for Northeastern Iraq.

NED COLT, Spokesman, UN High Commissioner for Refugees:  It can’t be done overnight.  No one would suggest otherwise.  But now the system is up and running in a major way.  So, we’re not just getting materials in that we already have in stock, but we are bringing them in from around the world.

MARGARET WARNER:  The tents in this shipment will shelter at least 20,000 people, but that’s just a fraction of the estimated 1.25 million Iraqis who have fled into the country’s Kurdish region since the self-proclaimed Islamic State began its onslaught here eight months ago.

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