(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Qatar Red Crescent (QRC) has launched a new project, in partnership with the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), to help Iraqi internally displaced persons (IDPs) who fled the recent violence in different parts of Iraq to Iraqi Kurdistan.
The purpose of the joint project is to ensure that all water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) standards are met in a new permanent IDP camp to be built in Ashti, Sulaymaniyah governorate, according to a statement from QRC.
Over one year, the partners will establish water and sanitation facilities in the camp in order to benefit 1,038 most-affected families (6,228 IDPs), 40% of whom are children, 52% female and 48% male.
The total budget of the project is $1,515,494. Of this, $599,648 is to contributed by QRC and $915,846 by Unicef.
According to International Organisation for Migration reports, there are 478,860 IDPs from Al Anbar and 500,000 from Mosul. This adds to the pressures on the region, already home to hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and Iraqi IDPs from past clashes.
Along with the Syrian refugee crisis, the massive influx of Iraqi IDPs has had a grave humanitarian impact on the ability of the Kurdistan regional government to meet even the most basic needs of this vulnerable population, the statement notes.
Of the three governorates, Dohuk has absorbed to its limit and, since January 2015, the other two governorates - Erbil and Sulaymaniyah € have been getting overcrowded.
The end-of-2014 Comprehensive Assessment Report reflected insufficient facilities to meet the basic needs of more than 1,000 families in the Arbat IDP camp, where water and sanitation was a top priority.
In response to this humanitarian call, and with a view to mitigating the overcrowding, the Sulaymaniyah authority allocated 25,000sqm of land to establish a new IDP camp in Ashti, near the Arbat refugee camp, with support from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other humanitarian agencies.
A "WASH" provision plan was developed for the permanent IDP site in close co-ordination with the Directorates of Water and Sewerage and UNHCR to ensure the camp's accessibility to safe water, gender-appropriate toilets and washing facilities, improved hygiene and sanitation services, and reduced water-borne diseases.
QRC and Unicef have already worked together on four water and food projects for Iraqi IDPs and Syrian refugees in addition to other health projects in Yemen and Syria, under a bilateral MoU signed in June 2014.
During 2015, in Iraqi Kurdistan, QRC has executed $292,178 worth of projects for Iraqi IDPs and $2,341,417 worth of projects for Syrian refugees, serving 43,340 Iraqis and 18,320 Syrians, respectively.
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