Number of Iraqi refugees swells

BAGHDAD – Raging sectarian violence has pushed up the number of refugees in Iraq by 20 000 in the last 10 days alone, the migration ministry said yesterday.

It said, in a statement, the total number of people displaced has reached 182 154. The crisis is likely to be far graver because ministry figures include only those who formally ask for aid within the country, some of them living in tented camps.By excluding thousands fleeing abroad or quietly seeking refuge with relatives, officials accept the data is an underestimate.The figure of 182 154, based on the ministry’s data of 30 359 families, is the number of those claiming aid since the February 22 bombing of a Shi’ite shrine in Samarra sparked a new phase of killing by Shi’ites and minority Sunni groups.Some 27 744 people have fled Baghdad alone in the past five months.More and more houses are boarded up in the capital and many shops in once bustling commercial districts have shut after being threatened with violence or attacked.One of those districts, Arasat, was hit by a mass kidnapping on Monday.Gunmen wearing uniforms of Iraqi security forces abducted 25 people from an office in the area in central Baghdad in broad daylight, police said, highlighting lawlessness afflicting the country more than three years after the fall of Saddam Hussein.Meanwhile, gunmen kidnapped more than 11 employees of the Iraqi-American Chamber of Commerce,which represents companies seeking to boost trade between postwar Iraq and firms in the United States.They pulled up in 15 four-wheel-drive vehicles and kidnapped employees and customers at the office on a street once known for expensive clothes and furniture shops.- Nampa-ReutersThe crisis is likely to be far graver because ministry figures include only those who formally ask for aid within the country, some of them living in tented camps.By excluding thousands fleeing abroad or quietly seeking refuge with relatives, officials accept the data is an underestimate.The figure of 182 154, based on the ministry’s data of 30 359 families, is the number of those claiming aid since the February 22 bombing of a Shi’ite shrine in Samarra sparked a new phase of killing by Shi’ites and minority Sunni groups.Some 27 744 people have fled Baghdad alone in the past five months.More and more houses are boarded up in the capital and many shops in once bustling commercial districts have shut after being threatened with violence or attacked.One of those districts, Arasat, was hit by a mass kidnapping on Monday.Gunmen wearing uniforms of Iraqi security forces abducted 25 people from an office in the area in central Baghdad in broad daylight, police said, highlighting lawlessness afflicting the country more than three years after the fall of Saddam Hussein.Meanwhile, gunmen kidnapped more than 11 employees of the Iraqi-American Chamber of Commerce,which represents companies seeking to boost trade between postwar Iraq and firms in the United States.They pulled up in 15 four-wheel-drive vehicles and kidnapped employees and customers at the office on a street once known for expensive clothes and furniture shops.- Nampa-Reuters