Iraq Violence Forces 4.2 Million People From Homes, UN Says

June 6 (Bloomberg) -- More than 4 million Iraqis have been forced from their homes by violence and the refugee crisis will probably worsen, the United Nations said.

About 2 million Iraqis have moved to other areas of the nation to escape fighting and sectarian attacks while 2.2 million fled to neighboring countries, Jennifer Pagonis, a spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, told reporters in Geneva yesterday.

Almost half of all displaced people have no access to food aid and the UNHCR is receiving ``disturbing reports'' that regional authorities in the country are refusing to register new arrivals, she said.

The UN agency said most of those displaced are from Baghdad or surrounding districts, where U.S. and Iraqi forces are intensifying efforts to stop sectarian violence between Shiite and Sunni Muslims and are seeking to quell an insurgency by al- Qaeda fighters and other terrorist groups.

``Individual governorates inside Iraq are becoming overwhelmed by the needs of the displaced,'' said Pagonis, according to the UNHCR's Web site. ``At least 10 out of the 18 governorates have closed their borders or are restricting access to new arrivals.''

Since February last year, an estimated 820,000 people have been displaced, she said. Neighboring Syria receives at least 30,000 Iraqi refugees a month, adding to the 1.4 million already there. There are 750,000 Iraqi refugees in Jordan, 80,000 in Egypt and about 200,000 in the Gulf region, she added, citing Iraqi government figures.

Closed Borders

Few Iraqi refugees are being welcomed by countries outside the region, particularly in Europe, Pagonis said, and called for ``borders to remain open to those in need of protection.''

The U.S., which led the invasion of Iraq in 2003 to topple former president Saddam Hussein, has called on the Iraqi government to speed up political reconciliation among ethnic and religious communities to halt the bloodshed.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged yesterday the military buildup in Baghdad is achieving slower-than-anticipated results ``because al-Qaeda and others are trying to make as much difficulty as possible for us and for the Iraqi government.''

The New York Times reported at the weekend that only about a third of Baghdad's neighborhoods are controlled by U.S. and Iraqi forces after more than three months of an intensified security effort in the capital.

Democrats in Congress are pressuring President George W. Bush to withdraw troops. Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, said security would worsen considerably if troops withdrew, Agence France-Presse reported.

``Things could get very much worse if we don't maintain an effective engagement here,'' Crocker told National Public Radio in an interview to be broadcast later today, AFP reported.

``I don't see an end game, as it were, in sight,'' Crocker responded, when asked if he saw a U.S. withdrawal on the horizon, according to the news agency.