Iraq's humanitarian crisis worsens

By Suleiman al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) - Iraq's humanitarian crisis has worsened, and decades of conflict and deteriorating basic services are reducing people's ability to cope with the hardships they face, a senior U.N. aid official said on Monday.

"There are wider concerns about the longer-term effect of prolonged conflict, and people's coping mechanisms become strained ... this deterioration of basic services is not yet reversed..." Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes told Reuters in an interview.

One effect of the "deteriorating humanitarian situation" were the "worrying signs" of acute malnutrition among four to nine percent of children under the age of five, even though malnutrition was still not a general phenomenon, he said.

"When you get these indicators ... these are alarm bells that you need to take some notice of," said Holmes, who is also the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator.

Four million Iraqis do not have enough food, only 40 percent have reliable access to safe drinking water and about one third of the population is cut off from basic health care, he said.

More than 1.26 million Iraqis have left their homes and become internal refugees because of sectarian violence since 2006. The U.N. estimates a further two million have fled Iraq, mainly to Syria and Jordan.

These movements were "tied to the gradual deterioration" of a state food rationing system that has been a lifeline in feeding a population of 28 million. It is now being supplemented by aid from the World Food Programme (WFP), Holmes said.

"We estimate that some four million people in Iraq do not have enough food and the public distribution system is not operating as well as anyone would like it to," he said.