FOUR MILLION DISPLACED PEOPLE IN MIDDLE EAST AT 'EXTREME RISK' - U.N.

The United Nations (U.N.) warned on Tuesday (October 3) that millions of refugees across the Middle East are unlikely to receive the help they need for the winter months. 

The U.N. Secretary General's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric also warned that the U.N. refugee agency was lacking funds for its winter assistance plan for the region."There are nearly 15 million Syrian and Iraqi refugees and internally displaced people scattered across the region. 

UNHCR estimates that as many as four million are in the extreme risk category and need timely and substantial help to prepare for the forthcoming winter," Dujarric told journalists at the United Nations headquarters, adding that just one quarter of those most at risk are likely to get the assistance they need. 

"The $245 million Regional Winter Assistance Plan for the region is only 26 per cent funded," he said. Internally displaced people in Syria battled the elements in temporary shelters last winter as they waited for aid to trickle in, many of them having fled Aleppo, which was a battleground then. 

The UN refugee agency UNHCR estimates that more than five million Syrians have fled the country since 2011, many seeking safety in Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan. The World Food Programme said it had to halve the food rations distributed to 1.4 million Iraqis displaced in the war against the Islamic State (ISIS) because of delays in payments of funds from donor states during last winter. 

Families at the Dawoodiya camp north of the Kurdish city of Dohuk struggled with power outages and a lack of heating fuel to keep them warm. Children were in need of winter clothes and blankets to stay warm. 

Fighting in Iraq continues as Iraqi forces launch what they say is a final assault to capture the town of Hawija, one of two pockets of territory still under ISIS control. Hawija, north of Baghdad, and a stretch along the Syrian border, west of the Iraqi capital, are the last pieces of territory still in the hands of ISIS in the country. The group took control of about a third of Iraq in 2014. 

NRT/Reuters