An Iraqi Red Crescent report released today says the number of internally displaced people (IDP's) in Iraq has quadrupled since January and is up eight times from a year ago.

While estimates of the IDP count vary widely -- some groups say as high as two million -- the Iraqi Red Crescent has unrivaled resources to gauge the count: 5,000 staff and 100,000 volunteers across the country.

The Iraqi Iraqi Red Crescent is the only humanitarian group working in all 18 Iraqi provinces and is the is organization chiefly responsible for providing temporary shelter, food, water, and health care for homeless internally displaced refugees.

Many IDP's take refuge in the house of extended family or a friend, while others squat illegally in abandoned houses. Many live on the streets or in makeshift mud huts and tin shacks, and tens of thousands of others live in tent cities. The Iraqi Red Crescent report says the province with the greatest number of IDP's is Ninevah (Mosul area), with 239,547, followed by Baghdad, with 196,227.

In addition to the IDP's, more than two million Iraqis are estimated to have fled Iraq for Syria, Jordan and other countries.

The full 25-page Iraqi Red Crescent report makes for fascinating, compelling reading, but it's not posted anywhere on the Web, and it contains too many graphics and is too big in size (3.9mb) to be posted directly on IraqSlogger.

If you'd like a copy of the full report, write to us in the left column "tips, questions, and suggestions box," and we'll e-mail the report to you.