2 million Iraqi refugees include doctors and proffesional people

Dr. Nafie Abtan reads from the letter that threatened to kill him if he didn't leave Iraq. He fled to Jordan three days later.

Iraq refugee: 'I feel disaster' as crisis grows

POSTED: 2:18 p.m. EST, March 7, 2007
From Nic Robertson
CNN
Story Highlights

• Nearly 2 million Iraqis have fled violence to other nations

• One U.N. official calls situation a "simmering crisis"

• Syria, Jordan recently tightened borders

• Jordan says it can't sustain refugee flow for long haul





Children stand outside their tent in a refugee camp for displaced Sunnis in Baghdad July 22, 2006. Some 80,000 Iraqis have fled their homes and registered with the government as refugees over the past two months, data showed on Thursday, taking the total in seven months of sectarian violence to a quarter of a million. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

Quarter million Iraqis fled homes

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Some 80,000 Iraqis have fled their homes and registered with the government as refugees over the past two months, data showed on Thursday, taking the total in seven months of sectarian violence to a quarter of a million.

A spokesman for the Migration Ministry, Sattar Nowruz, told Reuters that figures for the end of September showed that more than 40,000 families were claiming aid after leaving homes since February 22, when the destruction of a major Shi'ite shrine at Samarra sparked heavy and continuing sectarian bloodshed.

The ministry estimates the average Iraqi family at six people, giving a current total of more than 240,000 people compared to 27,000 families and 162,000 people at the end of July. Nowruz acknowledged that many more people do not register with the ministry or have fled abroad, and so are not counted