BERLIN, October 21 (RIA Novosti) - Germany has allocated an additional amount of 20 million euro ($25.5 million) to help refugees in Iraq, Germany’s Foreign Affairs Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Tuesday.
“The humanitarian situation of many refugees in Iraq is dramatic. If we think of the coming winter, it will become clear that we need to expand our efforts seriously. We are augmenting our humanitarian assistance and give the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Die Deutsche Welthungerhilfe [a German organization for world famine relief] a total amount of 20 million euro for measures aimed at helping the refugees in winter,” Steinmeier said in a statement received by RIA Novosti.
It is assumed that the funds will be used to build camps for the refugees, heat the already existing shelters as well as purchase tents, stoves, mattresses, thermal blankets and winter clothing.
The statement also said that the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Germany has already allocated 45 million ($51 million) euro to the humanitarian aid in Iraq.
As well as displacing large numbers of people in Iraq and Syria and rendering them refugees, the military advancement of the Islamic State has caused a lot of international chaos as to how to impede it.
In an attempt to do so, the United States launched airstrikes against the jihadists' positions in Iraq and Syria in mid-September, with some other countries such as France, the United Kingdom and Australia joining later to form an airstrike coalition to quash the militants.
