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UN says thousands of Syrian refugees cross to Iraq

19 August 2013 19:45 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The United Nations' refugee agency said Monday that over 21,000 Syrian refugees streamed into Iraq over the past few days in a sudden influx since the beginning of the two-year Syrian conflict, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said it is witnessing a major exodus from Syria since Thursday into Iraq at the Peshkhabour bridge over the Tigris River.

The latest influx would be added to over 154,000 Syrian refugees who are already in the country, UNHCR said.

Many of the fleeing refugees said that were fleeing fighting between armed groups, and they also talked about the scarcity of water, food and electricity, the agency said.

Most of the refugees fled areas in northern Syria including Aleppo, Hassake and Qamishly.

"We came from Qamishly, it took us three days to get here," Biruz Rashid a Syrian Kurdish refugee said.

"We are escaping an impoverished life under fire and bullets that have affected thousands of innocent people," Rashid said.

"There are no jobs, no future for our children and that is reason we came here. To change our lives," he added.

Iraq is already facing problems with the increasing numbers of its own displaced people as the UN mission in Iraq warned earlier in the day that 1.1 million Iraqis internally displaced in the country are facing tough future as the country plunged into conflicts and political strife.

On the occasion of World Humanitarian Day, Jacqueline Badcock, the UN deputy special envoy to Iraq, said in a statement that "the internally displaced persons (IDPs) are among Iraq's most vulnerable segments."

"In makeshift dwellings and temporary accommodation, they struggle to buy food and to access healthcare and education," Badcock said.

Waves of conflicts in the past decade have displaced families all over the country and pushed the country to have the second- highest number of IDPs in the Middle East after Syria.