Amid the rising sectarian violence, thousands of Iraqi's are fleeing their homes to get to safer areas of Iraq. According to Cnn.com:
As the attacks continue, Iraqis are fleeing their homes.
In the past two weeks alone, the number of Iraqis leaving for safer parts of the country has more than doubled to 65,000, the Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration said Thursday.
A ministry spokesman said there were 30,000 internal refugees estimated on March 30. The ministry put the number of families on the move at 10,991.
Most of the refugees are women and children, said an Iraq Red Crescent Society official.
"We are very concerned about communicable diseases in the camps that have formed, like cholera and typhoid," the official said. "This exponential increase of refugees is quite disturbing."
The refugee situation and bloodshed come amid a deadlock by Iraqi leaders over the formation of a national unity government, a step the United States considers necessary before its troops can begin to pull out.
How many more innocent Iraqi's are going to have to either chose to join a local militia to protect their families or end up having to leave their homes amid threats from opposing sects? And why should they have to make that choice in the first place? The simple answer is because of the administrations apparent lack of foresight of the insurgency and possible civil war. Call it what you want, but what is occuring daily in Iraq is a form of civil war. By disguising it as "sectarian violence" it allows the adminstration the ability to try to die down the actual severity and velocity of this violence. It's not enough to say that once they stand up, we'll stand down. A big reason why they are reluctant to stand up is because if they do, they know that they are putting themselves in grave danger of being attacked by an opposing militia or sect of people. And not only endangering themselves, but their families as well. The decision now for many Iraqi's is not whether to join the coalition and fight the insurgency but instead to join the insurgency in fear of being singled out, kidnapped, and god forbid killed senselessly. And to state the obvious, this isn't right. These people should not be forced to either chose between their and their familiy's safety or the possiblity of being kidnapped and murdered.