Minister: refugees from Nineveh, Hawija up to 90.000

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The number of refugees from Nineveh and Kirkuk’s town of Hawija has reached 90.000, said Iraq’ s Migration and Displacement Minister, Jassem al-Jaff.

The number is a surge from last week’s announced total of 80.000 people who had left their hometowns escaping Islamic State militants.

In the meantime, 1.5 million people have returned to their liberated areas, al-Jaff said during a ministry meeting on refugees on Monday.

The ministry’s refugee relief commission had allocated 1.5 billion Iraqi dinars for the health ministry for the treatment of wounded refugees and security personnel.

United Nations estimates put the number of internally-displaced Iraqis at above 3 million since January 2014. Other Iraqis are still stranded inside regions held by the Islamic State, and have recently been reported to suffer stinging shortages of daily livelihood under the extremist group’s rule.