The US-led invasion of Iraq five years ago and its violent aftermath have produced one of the largest humanitarian crises of our time, yet the “Coalition of the Willing” has been mostly unwilling to own up to it and provide adequate aid for the innocent bystanders, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) says in a new report. More than four million Iraqi civilians are estimated to be uprooted by horrific violence and in dire need of help in a crisis that is largely hidden from the public and ignored by the international community, according to a report issued March 18 by the IRC’s Commission on Iraqi Refugees. The report comes after an IRC Commission trip in February to refugee-inundated Syria and Jordan to examine the worsening crisis and seek ways to expedite aid and resettlement. The delegates met with Syrian President Bashar al Assad and other Syrian, Jordanian, Iraqi, US and UN officials, along with dozens of Iraqi refugees. “Neither the US nor the rest of the world is paying sufficient heed to the crisis,” the report states, adding that help offered by the US, primarily, as well as other international and regional donors, has been paltry and halfhearted.
The report, “Five Years Later, a Hidden Crisis,” is available at
