The Danish trade and development minister, Mogens Jensen, visited Iraq over the weekend where he vowed to help the million Iraqis displaced by militant Islamists surging through the country at the moment.

Jensen visited a refugee camp outside the western Iraqi city of Erbil to take stock of the situation, and afterwards he pledged 20 million kroner to help the many in need of emergency aid.

“The latest development in this new humanitarian crisis is very worrying,” Jensen said in a press release. “So we have given an extraordinary grant of 20 million kroner so the UN can quickly begin building refugee camps and distribute food.”

Jensen also met with representatives from the Kurdish authorities in Erbil, promising them that Denmark will continue to support the humanitarian situation.

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Food and shelter
About 450,000 people in the western Anbar province have been displaced since January as the Islamic militant group ISIL (also referred to as ISIS) gained more control of the area, while a further 500,000 people have been displaced after ISIL recently captured the city of Mosul.

The funds will help feed 40,000 internally displaced Iraqis for two months, establish receiving facilities at the border of the Kurdish autonomous area and help the Iraqi authorities establish camps for the displaced.

In addition to the 20 million, the Danes have contributed eight million kroner in 2014 through the Foreign Ministry’s humanitarian partnership agreements with the aid organisations Dansk Flygtningehjælp, Caritas and Red Barnet Danmark.