Kurdistan Aid Foundation Appeal
There are 1.8 million refugees in the Kurdistan region, displaced by a brutal conflict that shows no sign of end. This number increases everyday as people flee their homes.
Kurdistan is a country with a major refugee/IDP crisis. The numbers of people involved are so large that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the major NGOs have an impossible task to bring critical aid to many in need. The camps, while offering hope and shelter, are often unable to meet the basic requirements of many families. New make shift camps spring up every week, many with extremely poor conditions and in municipal areas already too overstretched to help.
Your donations to the Kurdistan Aid Foundation can help people like Amina, a farmer forced from her home by the conflict to a shed in an abandoned chicken farm in Debaga. The chicken farm is fast becoming another refugee camp in the area as inhabitants from villages around the nearby frontline take refuge here.
This site where Amina lives is temporary home to around 300 people. There is one toilet and nowhere to wash. The water tank is empty before the end of the day and there are no medical facilities. Problems such as skin allergies & diarrhoea are commonplace, caused by overcrowding and a lack of washing facilities. The UN does not currently have a budget to help the residents of this camp or the many others in the Debaga area.
With continued support from people like you, KAF is able to provide hygiene and medical packs so we can start to meet some of the needs of these displaced peoples.
Khalid Hajj arrived in Mamaylan camp for IDPs outside Akre town in Dohuk in November 2014. He fled from Shingal where his brother Suleiman was shot and captured by ISIL. His sister Nadima was also taken prisoner. “IS just attacked and robbed. I don’t know what has happened to my house. I would dearly love to go back to Shingal.”
Khalid lives in a tent with several other family members in cramped conditions. The children have all been ill during the winter months with respiratory illnesses and diarrhoea and as head of the family he feels guilty he is not able to do more to improve their situation. Please donate now to help his family and others like them.
The Refugee and IDP camps are many in Kurdistan and their plight obvious for all to see. These people are dependent on government agencies and charity donations.
KAF’s current focus is on the health issues resulting from the crowded camps. Disease can spread rapidly without access to clean water, clean food, and basic hygiene. Diarrhoea, respiratory diseases, skin conditions, measles, TB, dysentery AND typhoid are all diseases which can afflict the camp residents. They are all potentially fatal if left untreated.
The Kurdistan Aid Foundation seeks to help where it can through its own initiatives and also in partnership with other trusted charities such as the RISE Foundation, who are based in Kurdistan. RISE are able to carry out extensive needs assessments and seek to find vulnerable communities of IDPs that have received little or no support, such as the camps around Debaga. This gives KAF and you, our donors, an opportunity to make a difference in the communities that need assistance the most. A regular donation from you can help change their lives.