There are now 2.4 million Syrian refugees in total, and 217,144 in Iraq. Today, I’d like to bring you an update on Syrian refugees in Iraq from Christine Getzler Vaughan, Program Officer at the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM). Getzler Vaughan shares how the United States is at the forefront of Syria’s humanitarian response and discloses details from Assistant Secretary for the PRM Anne Richard’s recent trip to Iraq.
Getzler Vaughan tells us:
To date, the United States is at the forefront of the humanitarian response to the conflict in Syria, providing more than $1.7 billion dollars for humanitarian assistance. This funding is having a positive impact on millions of lives, inside and outside Syria, where the crisis is the worst we have seen in a generation. The Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, Anne Richard has recently returned from a trip to Erbil, Iraq, where she visited with Syrian refugees, local government officials, and international organizations and non-governmental organizations who are doing direct outreach with refugees on the ground. While in Erbil, she visited families who were living in refugee camps, seeing how some of this funding, via UN agencies and NGOs, has insulated tents, provided heaters and heating fuel, as well as warm clothes for refugees so desperately in need.
Assistant Secretary Richard reflects on her trip in the video below. She says, “People need everything from blankets to pots and pans to basins to wash babies in. All the things that many of us take for granted but are essential for the well-being for families who have fled.”
We’d like to thank PRM for their dedicated commitment to refugees. If this post moves you, call on your Congressional representative to support welcoming policies for refugees through the LIRS Action Center.