Iraqi IDP children playing in Baharka camp for IDP's in Erbil, Iraq. Photo: NRC/Becky Bakr Abdulla
Tens of thousands of Iraqi people are forced to flee their homes, many with little or no access to humanitarian aid. Photo: NRC/Becky Bakr Abdulla

Iraq turning into whirlwind of displacement

Published 04. Jun 2015
Iraq Children
More than 100,000 Iraqis displaced in Anbar in the last two weeks are desperately seeking to flee to safety while hardly any aid is reaching them, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) warned today. The situation is getting more desperate for more than 8.2 million people.
Ola (8) years is an Iraqi internally displaced. She lives with her family in Harshm camp, Erbil, Iraq and attends NRC's school support centre where the children learn Arabic, English and mathematics two hours every day. This day she came too early for class and had to wait outside. The teachers tell us that this often happens as the children are very excited about coming to the centres to learn. In the KRI, the IDP population reached over 1 million people in December 2014, of which 47,300 IDPs are children under 5 years old and 274,000 are under 18 years old, very few of them have access to education. In Iraq 75% of all IDP children (487,500) are out of school and not attending formal education. NRC has developed an education response approach that support the two governments (KR-I and Iraq) in the provision of education in emergency programs, basic education services and youth education. School Support Centres (classrooms/TLS and facilities for capacity building of education personnel) are established in areas with high concentration of IDPs (camps/host-communities) and NRC use these centres and the IDP education staff to cover gaps in the provision of services.NRC is assisting the schools with additional learning spaces and our education personnel (teachers) are filling gaps in the formal school. We are also providing bridging classes to children that due to the conflict and their displacement have been without school for a period. These children receive extra lessons, enabling them to later join the formal school system. NRC is also focusing on the psycho-social needs of children and the involvement of parents and other community stakeholders. The approach allows for NRC to facilitate the smooth running of the education activities in the area, with distribution of needed TLM and coordination between schools belonging to different education systems and with different curriculum. Photo: NRC/Becky Bakr Abdulla

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