IRAQ- Tent Camp Assessment Reveals Grim Reality- Although displacement has continued to slow down during the first half of 2008, IOM assessments carried in coordination with Iraq's Ministry for Displacement and Migration (MoDM) and the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization (IRCO) show that daily life for thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) living in tent camps remains grim.
Although the number of IDPs living in tent camps remains very low compared to the overall number of displaced persons living in rented housing, with relatives, in collective settlements or squatting in public buildings, tent camp residents have little or no access to basic services, cannot protect themselves against the elements or extreme weather, and are located far away from medical care, education, and other needs.
These harsh conditions, combined with a cultural aversion to living without familial privacy and personal dignity, make tent camps a last resort for Iraqi IDPs.
Furthermore, the report shows that those who reside in tent camps are often the most vulnerable among a displaced population, which is already vulnerable and in constant need of humanitarian assistance.
In Najaf's Al-Manathera camp, the largest in the country, families who were evicted from public buildings live in cramped tents and caravans, with limited access to sanitation and potable water.
Unemployment, overcrowding, and a lack of privacy continue to cause significant tensions among the camp's inhabitants.
In Sulaymaniyah's Qalawa camp, IDPs who settled in June 2006 an empty piece of open land still have no sanitation, no electricity and no toilets and live surrounded by garbage. As a result, cases of typhoid have recently been reported.
According to IOM's recently published Mid-Year Displacement and Return Review, an overwhelming majority of Iraq's 2, 8 millions IDPs and returnees continue to suffer from inadequate shelter, insufficient access to potable water, food and other basic services such as health care, education and electricity.
Despite limited funding and insecurity, IOM continues to assist the displaced, returning Iraqis, and host communities with emergency food, water and household item distributions, community assistance projects, and advocacy. However, overall assistance to these vulnerable communities remains inadequate. Until long-term stability is realized, rule of law improved and basic services restored, internal displacement in Iraq will remain a serious humanitarian crisis that calls for urgent assistance
This document, along with a range of other IOM reports released on all aspects of displacement in Iraq, can be found at http://www.iom-iraq.net/library.html#IDP .
KENYA- New Funding Provides Transitional Shelters for Displaced- Vulnerable households displaced by post-election violence earlier this year will benefit from transitional shelters thanks to new funding from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF).
The USD 500,000 contribution will benefit 700 extremely vulnerable families, including persons with serious medical conditions, the elderly, female-headed households and orphans, who for the past eight months have been living in dismal conditions in more than one hundred minimally assisted transit sites.
"In three districts of the North Rift Valley, IOM is carrying out in-depth household assessments through its psychosocial programme to identify particularly vulnerable families," says Jerotich Seii Houlding, IOM's Emergency Response Officer. "Once identified, the families will then be provided with timber-framed, corrugated iron-roofed transitional shelters, which they will occupy as they rebuilt their lives and livelihoods."
The violence, which followed Kenya's disputed general elections in December 2007, led to the displacement of up to 500,000 people and to the destruction of an estimated 40,000 homes.
Operation Rudi Nyumbani (Return Home), which was launched in May following the formation of a Grand Coalition Government, has allowed more than 200,000 IDPs to leave camps and host communities to return to their pre-displacement homes, mainly in the Rift Valley.
However, it is estimated that 60% of all IDPs are returning to damaged or destroyed homes, whilst an estimated 80,000 displaced who cannot return to their lands are forced to live under plastic sheeting in transit sites, which lack the most basic facilities and infrastructures.
IOM is appealing for an additional USD 3, 5 million to provide much needed shelter assistance to an additional 7,000 displaced families.
For more information, please contact Jerotich Seii Houlding at IOM Nairobi, Tel: +254 20 4444 174/167; email: jseiihoulding@iom.int or Rose Ogola, email: rogola@iom.int
PHILIPPINES - IOM Taps McDonald's Staff to Paint IOM-USAID Homes - IOM has tapped staff at multinational food chain McDonalds to help paint hundreds of new homes built by IOM and USAID in Guinobatan, Albay, for families displaced by Typhoon Reming in 2006.
A group of ten volunteers from the local branch of McDonalds in Legazpi started work on Saturday to help paint completed homes built by the IOM-USAID Bicol Core Permanent Shelter and Community Revitalization Assistance Project.
The 12-month project, funded by USAID and based in Albay and Camarines Sur, is contributing to the Philippine Government's sustainable recovery program for Typhoon Reming survivors by constructing typhoon-proof and earthquake-resistant houses and multi-purpose community centres for families and communities hardest hit by the super typhoon.
To date, IOM has constructed 423 new homes and plans to finish 484 more by the end of September 2008.
For more information, please contact Mark Mauli at IOM Manila; Tel: +63921 57 63 047; email: mmaulit@iom.int
