Did you know there are over 100 million refugees in the world that's double the population of South Korea. But of the 100 million refugees 60 million of them come from the Middle east. And out of the 60 million 9.2 million are iraqis. Hello my name is amiteez and i'm going to be talking about the effects of war in iraq and how they affected the people and how we can help them.
The Iraq war started in 2003 when the US claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. They also claimed that Saddam Hussian was supporting al Qaeda. When really they wanted the oil in iraq. Then with the combined force of the US,Denmark , UK , Australia and Poland on march 30th 2003 they invaded Iraq. The war was met with protests around the world with many people not wanting it. But the Americans, wanting to be different at first, supported the military in the war.. Then later on in 2004 they released the invasion was bad and the opinion of the war was drastically different. The war was horrific with 1.5 million Iraqis dying when it ended and with 9.2 million becoming refugees.
“Come on This ones nothing like Vietnam Except for bullets, except for the bombs Except for the youth that's gone. This line from the song Light Up Ya can be said for almost every if you replace the vietnam. In world war 2 many were promised this war would be nothing like the previous one. But then 70 million people were subtracted from the population, nearly 4 times as much in ww1. Even though the Iraq war wasn't as bad as WW2 it did cause the death of 1.5 million Iraqis.
The Iraq war has left Iraq in ruins even though it ended 11 years ago 16% of Iraq's population have been left homeless and many have fled iraq. Many still experience psychological damage, starvation and diseases. 800,000 children became orphans and many children still have a fear about the war and have depression and anxiety from it.
The iraqi perception around the world is probably one of the terrorist steryotype. Also from what i've found when i asked people is that they are good people and that they have been used and exploited. They have experienced something no one should yet they are living in hell. Their infrastructure is destroyed and their economy is in ruins.
There are many ways to help the Iraqi refugees. One solution is protesting New zealand has to take a quota1500 refugees each year. But only 463 have been accepted. Our country has also failed to meet its quota of refugees for 3 years 3 YEARS!. We have some of the lowest number of refugees per capita with only 1800 refugees. So we must protest to our government that they need to make their quota of refugees. There are still millions of refugees who are still not accepted. Another one is refugee camps. These camps are temporary homes for refugees. Even though these camps are supposed to be temporary, they usually last longer than expected. These camps already house 22 percent of all refugees and are for the most part pretty good for refugees. But the things with these camps are their lack of food, water and hegyan. And overall are just basically underfunded and have quite a bit of crime happening in them.
Whilst these 2 methods are good. But the method that I think is the best is donating or sponsoring. This method can be done by anyone because you don't have to be a government with billions of dollars. There are many charities you can donate to, one of them is amnesty international. They are a charity who help a lot of people including refugees. They help refugees by helping them get into countries and helping to protect their rights.