Iraq
Iraqi migration ministry employees asssisting the Lebanese refugees arriving in Iraq at the al-Qaim border crossing on October 2, 2024. Photo: Iraqi migration ministry
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq has received more than 5,500 Lebanese refugees since the start of Israel’s escalated attacks, a spokesperson for the Iraqi interior ministry said on Saturday.
“We have received as of now 5,693 refugees from Lebanon who came via Najaf International Airport and Baghdad Airport, and the al-Qaim border crossing” with Syria, Miqdad Miri, Iraq's interior ministry spokesperson, said in a press conference in Baghdad.
Miri said that they have had “high coordination” with Beirut’s embassy in Baghdad to assist Lebanese nationals who want to enter Iraq but do not have travel documents.
Miri also said that they established a field hospital at the Qaim border crossing with Syria’s Deir ez-Zor province to provide care for the incoming refugees.
More than 1,500 people have entered the country through Qaim, Ali Majeed, director of health for the Iraqi Red Crescent, told Rudaw’s Mushtaq Ramadhan on Saturday.
Among the displaced Lebanese nationals were “tens of people with injuries, with six of them being released [from hospital] after receiving primary health care and first aid services,” Majeed said.
The Iraqi Red Crescent Society has also provided humanitarian aid to Lebanon via air and ground shipments since the intensified conflict began two weeks ago, according to Majeed.
Israel, which has frequently targeted sites in Lebanon since its war with Hamas began a year ago, has recently escalated its attacks. Since the conflict began, 1.2 million people, nearly a quarter of the Lebanese population, have been displaced, Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Wednesday.
The United Nations on Monday, citing Lebanese officials, reported that more than 1,600 people have been killed and 8,000 wounded in Lebanon by Israeli bombardments since October 2023.
Lebanon is also hosting 1.5 million Syrian refugees, in addition to 13,715 refugees of other nationalities.
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