KABUL, March 2: The United Nations refugee agency said on Sunday it was struggling due to lack of funds and international support to prepare for a potential exodus of up to 600,000 refugees in the event of conflict in Iraq.

The UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Ruud Lubbers said the organisation hoped war could be avoided but had already mobilised teams and set up supplies in the event that a possible US military intervention provokes an exodus.

Lubbers told reporters that although UNHCR was working with aid agencies in Iraq’s neighbours Iran and Turkey, cooperation from other international governments and organisations was needed.

“We came to the conclusion that we had to speak with the neighbouring countries about the possibility that some 500,000 to 600,000 people will come to the border, trying to flee the country, and there they will have to be accommodated.”

Lubbers, in Kabul for talks on returning Afghan refugees to areas still hit by regional tensions and conflict, said UNHCR would be working closely with Turkey and Iranian Red Crescent agencies.

“But we need international support from the international community, but today nobody is very enthusiastic about the preparation.”

He said UNHCR personnel and equipment were already on the ground along Iraq’s borders and, in the event of war, he would head to Iraq to oversee operations himself.

“We prepared an emergency stock, very limited because our funds are very limited. We have assigned people ... we have teams, we have prepared that.”

Last week US officials in Washington warned that conflict in Iraq could displace up to two million people within the country’s borders.

Elliott Abrams, special assistant to President Bush and director for Near East and North Africa at the National Security Council, said the figure reflected a “catastrophic” scenario and numbers could be lower.—AFP