"We are ready to respond," Ruud Lubbers, head of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a meeting of the permanent council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

He said his agency and other partners were equipped to handle 600,000 refugees from the wartorn country but so far only a few had trickled out.

Ruud said that was in stark contrast to 1991 when some two million Iraqis fled their country during the Gulf War when a US-led coalition ousted Iraqi occupation troops from Kuwait.

"It is true that there are not yet many refugees, but experience has taught us that they may still come," Lubbers said.

He added that a large number of Iraqis had fled major towns and cities and sought refuge in the countryside since the US-led offensive to topple the Iraqi regime began on March 20.

Early Tuesday, hundreds of families could be seen fleeing Baghdad as the capital came under intensive US bombing and US forces battled Iraqi fighters for control of the city.

Lubbers said the UNCHR had set up 10 camps along the Iraq-Iran border in the event of an exodus from the south of the country and from the capital.

Refugee camps set up in the same area during the Gulf War took in some one million Iraqis, mainly Kurds and Shiite Muslims, and 200,000 remain in those camps.

Lubbers said that Iraqis make up the largest number of asylum seekers in the West with 400,000 of them in 90 countries. In the past three years, about 15,000 have sought asylum in various countries, he said.

SPACE.WIRE