Car bombs kill 21 people in Iraq; EU warns of donor fatigue
The head of the European Union's humanitarian aid department warned on Thursday that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating rapidly while the world is preoccupied with crises elsewhere. Shortly after Jean-Louis de Brouwer sounded the stark warning, a wave of car bombs targeting public places after nightfall in Baghdad and in a town just south of […]Paul Schemm and Samir N. Yacoub write for AP:
The head of the European Union's humanitarian aid department warned on Thursday that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating rapidly while the world is preoccupied with crises elsewhere. Shortly after Jean-Louis de Brouwer sounded the stark warning, a wave of car bombs targeting public places after nightfall in Baghdad and in a town just south of the Iraqi capital killed a total of 21 people and wounded scores of others.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks but Baghdad and its surroundings have seen near-daily bombings, mostly targeting the country's majority Shiites or security forces even as authorities struggle to win back territory captured by the Islamic State group. Earlier in the day, De Brouwer told The Associated Press that the number of displaced people in Iraq has quadrupled in the last year and shows no signs of decreasing. "The worst is still to come," he said. "The situation is deteriorating, humanitarian aid is becoming even more essential than it was, the problem is funding." Iraq is convulsed in a battle between the government, its militia allies and forces of the Islamic State group that have taken over large parts of the north and west in the country.
