The UN Population Fund ( UNFPA) has warned that an estimated quarter of a million women and girls, including 60,000 pregnant women, affected by the conflict in northern and western Iraq, are in need of urgent care, a UN spokesman told reporters here Thursday.
"As health facilities are overstretched, UNFPA expects that the number of unassisted childbirth may rise, jeopardizing the lives of mothers and newborns," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.
"Moreover, it remains concerned, as in any emergency, about the vulnerability of women and girls to gender-based violence and exploitation," he said.
The executive director of the UNFPA, Babatunde Osotimehin, said that the agency is redirecting its resources to respond to the crisis and that it needs some 6.5 million U.S. dollars to meet the needs of more than 200,000 women and girls.
Earlier this month, UN officials voiced their grave concerns at targeting of women and children, who have reportedly been kidnapped, raped and forcibly married to militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS) and other armed groups.
Meanwhile, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported that it has made its first delivery of essential humanitarian supplies to Sinjar, in the western Governorate of Ninevah. The town is now sheltering some 50,000 displaced people, more than half of them children.
The UN agency has delivered water, hygiene kits, jerry cans as well as safe birth kits to help displaced families cope with the crisis