Displaced Iraqis double despite US military surge

The number of Iraqis who have fled their homes but remained in the country has more than doubled to 1.14 million, despite the "surge" in numbers of US troops in recent months, according to a leading humanitarian organisation.

Statistics collected by the Iraqi Red Crescent Society showed 447,000 internally displaced Iraqis on January 1, soaring to the current figure on July 1 after the deployment of 30,000 extra American personnel starting in February.

The new data, released at the weekend, show that sectarian conflict remains undiminished - despite Washington's claims of an improvement in the security situation in the Baghdad area - and that different communities are now gravitating apart, creating a de facto partition as Shia Muslims move south and Sunnis to the centre and west of the country. The UNHCR said recently that on average 50,000 Iraqis were now fleeing their homes every month. The trend was confirmed last month by the UN's Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which found that internal displacements had escalated since the al-Qaida bombing of the Shia al-Askari shrine in Samarra in February 2006.

In addition to those who have abandoned their homes but stayed in Iraq, some 2 million Iraqis have now fled the country since the 2003 US invasion, with most now living in neighbouring Syria and Jordan.

The IOM said 63% of the internally displaced reported fleeing after direct threats to life, and that more than a quarter had been forcibly displaced from their property. Some 90% said they were targeted because of their religious identity.

"Does this surge have anything to do with it? We don't know," said Saeed Haqi, head of the Iraqi Red Crescent. "But they're leaving because of the security situation in general."

Shia - an estimated 60% of the total Iraqi population of 28 million - are the largest group to be displaced, representing 64%, with Sunnis making up 32% and Christians 4%, the IOM said.

In large cities such as Baghdad and Baquba, both Sunnis and Shia were being displaced to homogeneous neighbourhoods of their own sect.

"The stability that was anticipated as a result of various security plans has not materialised, and as the violence continues in Iraq, so will the displacement," said the IOM. The UNHCR reported this summer that displacement caused by the conflict in Iraq had increased world refugee numbers by 14% to more than 10 million.

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