Brussels, 25/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has announced new humanitarian aid projects worth €104 million to help those affected by the rapidly intensifying conflict in Iraq. The EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, Christos Stylianides, made this announcement on Saturday 23 July, during a visit to Baghdad. The Commissioner is currently in Mosul on a mission to assess the needs of the country.
This aid will help provide for the needs of displaced persons and will include food, healthcare, drinking water and purification, as well as sanitation, protection and shelter. It will be put into place by way of UN humanitarian agencies and the NGO partners of ECHO (the Commission's humanitarian aid and civil protection service) active on the ground.
The Commissioner provided the Iraqi people with assurances of the EU's continuing solidarity and stated: “I've always said Iraq can become another Syria, another major humanitarian emergency of global scale. So we have to act”.
Since January 2014, more than 3.4 million people, over half of whom are children, have been displaced in Iraq. Nearly a third of Iraq's population, in excess of ten million people, currently rely on humanitarian assistance.
The funding is part of an overall EU aid package of €194 million announced by Commissioner Stylianides at the International Pledging Conference in Support of Iraq, held on 20 July in Washington. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)