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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN)-- Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes to escape the war and escalating sectarian violence in Iraq, the country's Ministry of Displaced Persons and Immigration announced Wednesday.
The reported exodus is the latest sign of the profound demographic changes in a country being ripped apart by Sunni-Shiite animosity.
The ministry said the deteriorating security situation in Baghdad was primarily to blame for 53,788 families leaving their homes. (Watch Baghdad bomb wreckage, witnesses describe carnage -- 1:43
)
Given that the average Iraqi family consists of eight to 10 members, at least half a million Iraqis have been displaced since the February bombing of the Askariya mosque in Samarra, a holy Shiite shrine, the chairman of the Iraqi Red Crescent told CNN.
Among the displaced are at least 100,000 children, said Dr. Said Ismail Hakki, and a fifth of the displaced have fled during the last four weeks.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/18/iraq.main/index.html
The reported exodus is the latest sign of the profound demographic changes in a country being ripped apart by Sunni-Shiite animosity.
The ministry said the deteriorating security situation in Baghdad was primarily to blame for 53,788 families leaving their homes. (Watch Baghdad bomb wreckage, witnesses describe carnage -- 1:43
)Given that the average Iraqi family consists of eight to 10 members, at least half a million Iraqis have been displaced since the February bombing of the Askariya mosque in Samarra, a holy Shiite shrine, the chairman of the Iraqi Red Crescent told CNN.
Among the displaced are at least 100,000 children, said Dr. Said Ismail Hakki, and a fifth of the displaced have fled during the last four weeks.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/18/iraq.main/index.html