and a further two million are internally displaced.

Most refugees are in Syria and Jordan - which hosts the largest number of refugees per capita of any country on earth. The vast majority survive with little or no assistance from the international community. Eight million Iraqis are in need of humanitarian assistance.

A special issue of Forced Migration Review – the in-house magazine of the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford – assesses the scale of the displacement and inadequacy of current responses.

Twenty-six articles – from the UN, the governments of Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Sweden, the Red Cross, the Iraqi Red Crescent, Human Rights Watch and non-governmental agencies – offer suggestions to prevent a further escalation of the humanitarian crisis and to establish an eventual framework for the durable return of displaced Iraqis.

Insecurity prevents a robust response to humanitarian needs. The UN’s dependence on Coalition military forces means it is no longer perceived by the Iraqi people as neutral.

The Government of Iraq lacks capacity to respond to the crisis and inflexible and inappropriate funding mechanisms deny adequate support for agencies which are better able to assist vulnerable communities.

Every week the US military alone spends more in Iraq than the entire annual global budget of the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) yet non-governmental relief agencies operating in Iraq face severe funding constraints.

AMSI Net- Alarab Online