Five years after President Bush declared the Iraq War “Mission Accomplished,” more than 4.7 million Iraqis have been displaced from their homes –about 15% of Iraq’s population or the populations of Iowa, New Hampshire, and Washington DC combined. Five years later, the humanitarian crisis in Iraq is still one of the most underreported catastrophes of the Iraq war and it’s not getting better.

This is the largest refugee crisis in the Middle East since 1948 and was directly caused by the U.S. invasion. Yet, the United States has done little to alleviate this massive humanitarian crisis.  Fewer than 6,000 Iraqis have been resettled in the U.S. since the war began.

Just on Tuesday, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees released a survey of Iraqi refugees in Syria. 95 percent of respondents said they “fled Iraq because of direct threats or general insecurity” and only 4 percent of the respondents had any plans to return home.

Via CNN.

Users can now view refugee camps through the popular Google Earth service. 

The maps will aid humanitarian operations as well as help inform the public about the millions who have fled their homes because of violence or hardship, according to the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which is working with Google on the project.

Users can download Google Earth software to see satellite images of refugee hot spots such as Darfur, Iraq and Colombia. Information provided by the U.N. refugee agency explains where the refugees have come from and what problems they face.

I think this has the potential to do good by raising awareness about refugees around the world. 

This event is certainly star-studded, and I nearly (literally) ran into Angelina Jolie on the way to the bathroom. (Note: For all you young women out there, in real life she looks like a totally normal, very skinny woman.) The photo flashes go into high gear when she walks into the room. I guess we're all suckers for movie stars.

Introduced by Gene Sperling, Jolie talks about her cause of support for refugee children in relation to education. Her speech is laden with the overly American viewpoint that an education will be the difference and these refugees sitting on a dirt floor in Africa can, with an education, become the prestigious leaders of their countries. Toward the end of the speech, she addressed Iraqi refugees and said a few hours of war funding would pay for the educations of 150 million children.

Update: Where do the refugees go? Recently, attentention has come to the millions of refugees who have left Iraq, meanwhile, the United States, arguably the incitor of the conflict in Iraq, has absorbed very few of the refugees. Also, refugees are also in a semi-permanent situation, so that's why this working group is working toward building schools. 

One questioner says that India is affected by the lack of education as well, but the major cause is simple poverty. 

Update II: The American Association of Young People (who broght you idealist job fairs in the past) asked about tuition reimbursement in exchange for doing public service. CGI's education group sounded open to partnernships, but didn't go into depth.