UN says millions of displaced Iraqis face grim future

UNHCR goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie has visited Iraq's al Waleed refugee camp, where at least 1,200 people are living (File photo). (Getty Images: Morris Bernard/UN High Commissioner for Refugees)

The United Nations says the plight of millions of displaced Iraqis is likely to worsen in the next few months.

The UN refugee agency says Iraqi governors are turning away people fleeing dangerous provinces because they lack the resources to support them.

People living in camps do not have enough food, clean water and health care, and in one desert camp three children have died of heat stroke.

The head of the UNHCR's Iraq support unit, Andrew Harper, says local governors say they lack the resources to look after hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

He says Iraq is becoming a pressure cooker, with as many as 11 provinces now turning internal migrants away.

"We're having a pressure cooker building up inside Iraq that there is no imminent end to the displacement," he said.

"The possibility for Iraqis to find safety and find assistance is becoming increasingly restricted and so where they can move is becoming increasingly over-populated and tense."

He says the provinces have been overwhelmed by the sheer number of people fleeing their homes.

Mr Harper says local governors have reacted by blocking refugees from entering their territory or denying them food and education if they do get in.

Since 2003, four million Iraqis have left their homes - two million to go abroad and two million moving elsewhere in Iraq.

Mr Harper says Iraq's neighbours have decided to close their borders, with an estimated 1.4 million Iraqis already in Syria and up to 750,000 in Jordan.

An Iraqi woman in one of the refugee camps in Iraq says their situation is....