The U.N. refugee agency said thousands of Iraqis are fleeing the country every day in a "steady, silent exodus". While about 50,000 Iraqis returned home from neighbouring countries last year, only 1,000 did this year, thanks to the ongoing war and the increasing sectarian violence it created in the country.
The government of Iraq and UNHCR estimate that there are now more than 1.5 million people displaced within Iraq itself. Some have been displaced since the early 1990s, but the figure also includes more than 365,000 people who have fled their homes and communities since unidentified assailants destroyed an important Shiite Mosque in the town of Samarra in February.
Increasing internal displacement is also having reverberations outside Iraq, with more Iraqi arrivals monitored in neighbouring countries and beyond. "We estimate that up to 1.6 million Iraqis are now outside their country, most of them in Jordan and Syria. Others are in Iran," UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said.
"Our staff [are] seeing about 2,000 people a day coming across," Mr Redmond added. "So it's more than 40,000 people a month just into Syria." Thousands more are moving on to Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, the Gulf States and Europe.
See also:
UNHCR worried about effect of dire security situation on Iraq's displaced
More than 300,000 Iraqis have fled their homes since Saddam's fall
Iraqi Refugees in Syria: Silent Exodus Leaves 500,000 in Need of Protection and Aid
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