ARBIL: Iraqi Kurdistan has asked oil companies operating in the autonomous region for $50m to help deal with an influx of refugees from Syria that has put a strain on its resources.
Around 200,000 refugees, many of them from Syria’s own Kurdish minority, have poured into the self-ruled enclave in northern Iraq since the start of the conflict more than two years ago.
The number of refugees crossing monthly into Iraqi Kurdistan has surged to more than 40,000.
“Given the huge scale of the crisis and the number of refugees arriving daily we all need to work together to provide more urgently needed help,” Kurdistan’s minister for natural resources, Ashti Hawrami, said in a statement.
REUTERS
