BAGHDAD, Oct 10: The number of displaced Iraqi families is rising rapidly, officials said on Tuesday, with over 300,000 people already driven from their homes by sectarian violence.

The number of families forced to flee hit 51,000 as their neighbourhoods fall prey to bombers, militias and sectarian death squads, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Migration and Displacement.

"Now there is forced displacement in Saba Al-Bor north of Baghdad, and the ministry has formed a council that will supervise the building of a camp for them," said Abd al-Samad Sultan, minister for the displaced.

Within Baghdad, he said, almost 9,000 families have been displaced, as Sunnis quit Shia-dominant east Baghdad and vice-versa.

The figure is based on the number of displaced families that have registered with the ministry. It could in reality be much higher, as many of those living in the most violent areas either cannot register or do not trust the government.

For example, Shia families fleeing south to the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf, which have escaped the worst of the fighting, are included, but Sunnis driven out of the lawless and war-torn Anbar province are largely not. Middle class émigrés are also not registered.

According to the ministry measure of six people per family, at least 306,000 people have been displaced since the February 2006 bombing of a Shia shrine in Samarra.—AFP