BAGHDAD (AP) – The number of people displaced within Iraq due to violence and fighting by the Islamic State group has exceeded 3 million, the United Nations said Tuesday, a grim milestone for the war-battered country.
The International Organization for Migration, or IOM, said that at least 3.09 million people have been displaced between January 2014 and June 4 within 18 Iraqi provinces. The majority of the displaced are from Anbar province, Iraq’s Sunni heartland captured last summer in a blitz by the IS militants.
Fighting in Anbar has intensified in the past months as Iraqi forces, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes fight to claw back territory held by the Islamic State.
The IOM report said that more than 276,000 people have been displaced over a two-month period between April and June alone amid fighting in Anbar’s provincial capital, Ramadi, which eventually saw the city slip out of Iraqi government’s control.
At least 45 percent of Anbar’s displaced have fled to Baghdad, while about 35 percent are elsewhere within the sprawling desert province.