By Ashley Jonathan Clements
With the recent five-year anniversary of the Coalition invasion of Iraq, some steps have been taken to improve the lives of those displaced.
Jordan has opened up its classrooms to 50,000 Iraqi refugees this academic year and an amnesty was issued for refugees living in Lebanon—hundreds of whom were imprisoned simply because they were refugees. But more action is urgently needed in order to offer meaningful hope to a trapped generation of Iraqi youth.
The war, which promised to be decisive and short-lived, has turned into one of the world’s greatest humanitarian crises, the effects of which have spilled across the entire region.
“The scale of the crisis facing the people of Iraq, inside and outside its borders, is so great that its neighbours simply do not have the necessary resources to cope,” said Sharon Payt, World Vision’s Advocacy Director for the Middle East.
Children of War
A year ago World Vision warned of a “trapped” generation of Iraqi youth, who were growing up in poverty, bearing the psychological scars of war and had few prospects for education or employment.
Today, one in six Iraqis has been displaced and hundreds of thousands of civilians killed. Over two million Iraqis have sought refuge in the urban centres of Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. But for most of these refugees, the sanctuary they sought has so far eluded them.
Small numbers of vulnerable Iraqis have been resettled in third countries. And this year, chronic under-funding of UN appeals severely threatens the level of services currently offered to refugees from the humanitarian community.
Though there have been reports of large numbers of returnees, the reality is that these do not yet outweigh the number of Iraqis still fleeing the country.
Religious minorities and the Christian Church in Iraq are both under serious threat. Targeting by religious militias and criminal groups—as was tragically seen last month after the body of an abducted Chaldean archbishop was found—has forced many from the country, raising doubts about the continued presence of these ancient religions in Iraq once the dust of war settles.
Offering Hope
World Vision’s work over the past year has focused on caring for Iraqi children in Jordan, targeting psychosocial support and education through an integrated program and advocacy emergency response. The organization has been working with vulnerable and impoverished families in the Middle East for three decades.
To learn more about the Iraqi Refugee crisis, click here.
To help a child in need, click here.
