Humanitarian Crisis Looms as Tidal Wave of Civilians Flee Fallujah

Iraqis who fled the violence in their village of Saqlawiyah, north west of Fallujah, wait
AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images

The Daily Telegraph reports: An “unprecedented tidal wave” of 30,000 people fleeing Fallujah over the weekend has left Iraqi authorities overwhelmed and struggling to accommodate them in makeshift camps around the city.

Hundreds of families, including young children, have spent the last few nights sleeping on the ground with no shelter in temperatures reaching 50 degrees Celsius.

The recent exodus only adds to the record number of 65 million people displaced by conflict worldwide, as revealed by the United Nations Monday on World Refugee Day.

The figure, which jumped from 59.5 million in 2014 and by 50 percent in five years, means that 1 in every 113 people is now a refugee, asylum-seeker or internally displaced in their home country.

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