Not less than 50,000 displaced Iraqi families in the Kirkuk area are being neglected by international aid groups irrespective of sheltering in areas accessible to humanitarian organizations, medical charity Medecines Sans Frontiers (MSF) said on Friday. Reuters report:
Only a handful of local organizations are providing essential items including food, hygiene kits and blankets, but the aid is sporadic and does not cover even the basic needs of the uprooted families, said MSF.
“So far the majority of the funds and attention of the international community (have) focused on Iraqi Kurdistan,” Fabio Forgione, MSF’s head of mission in Iraq, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“Having worked in Kirkuk now for years and having increased our activities in the last few months, we do see the possibility for other international organizations to intervene.”
More than two million people have been displaced by an Islamic State offensive in Iraq this year and almost half of them have sought refuge in Kurdistan.
