Lean Holidays for Increasing Numbers of Iraqis Displaced by Militants as Funding for WFP Dwindles (For the Media)

Around 1600 displaced Christians, mostly from Mosul, are living in this unfinished shopping mall. There are no walls and the ground floor is filled with water. Temperatures drop below freezing at night. Here they are trying to prepare for Christmas the best they can with a makeshift nativity scene.  WFP provides them food vouchers and food like rice, cooking oil and pasta. More than 1.8 million people from different groups have fled the militant attacks in Iraq since June 2014. In Peshmerga military base, Kurdish forces have been airlifting Yazidis from Mt. Sinjar. On this day they freed Mt. Sinjar from the militants. WFP has provided food assistance to more than 1 million people displaced across Iraq since the upsurge in violence in mid-June. This is in spite of a very challenging security situation.