Aside from the handful of countries, the international community is failing to support the plight of Iraqi refugees, UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told the media on Friday in an urgent appeal for assistance.

Despite financial pledges for UN programs and strongly-worded rhetoric expressing deep concern for displaced Iraqis at the April conference in Geneva, "the two countries caring for the biggest proportion of Iraqi refugees – Syria and Jordan – have still received next to nothing in bilateral help from the world community."

Speaking with surprisingly strong language for a UN official, Redmond condemned the inaction, saying it's "unconscionable that generous host countries (have been) left on their own to deal with such a huge crisis."

Redmond said host countries, particularly Syria and Jordan where more than 2 million displaced Iraqis now reside, struggle to provide for the homeless refugees. "The growing refugee population and the communities that host them are facing enormous hardships that will only get worse if the international community doesn't put its money where its mouth is," Redmond said.

The most welcoming neighbor continues to be Syria, which, according to Redmond, takes in about 30,000 new refugees every month. By comparison, the State Department announced this week that the US accepted 63 Iraqi refugees in June, roughly double the number that had been allowed in the first five months of 2007.

Speaking at a press conference at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, Redmond emphasized the long-term damage that would result from a failure to provide for the millions of displaced Iraqis.

"In Syria, for example, only 32,000 of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugee children in the country are actually in school. Syria, with 1.4 million Iraqis, is the only country in the region that allows free public school access for all Iraqi children. But there simply isn't enough space to take them all in. To try to cope, Syrian education officials have been forced to convert scores of public schools back to the double-shift system that the country had expected under a long-term national development plan to end by 2010. A whole generation of Iraqi children is in danger of missing out on an education....The health infrastructure is also under severe strain and thousands of Iraqis are suffering because they can't get proper help. Every week, we're seeing sick and maimed Iraqis – including many burn and trauma victims – arriving in Syria in search of medical help."