Time is of the essence for Iraq’s 247,352 Syrian refugees as well as the 3,596,356 million internally displaced persons living inside Iraq. Thanks to Asiacell and long-time technology partner Ericsson, REFUNITE has been able to respond rapidly to this displacement crisis.

These days, REFUNITE is rolling out a new and improved version of our mobile search tool in Arabic, which will make it easier for separated families to search, connect and communicate. The service is based on SMS and is free to use for subscribers of Asiacell, a leading mobile operator in Iraq.

We have launched a large-scale SMS campaign to inform Syrian families of our mobile search tool. Campaigns have been launched in Baghdad, Suly, Erbil as well as Basra and Karbala. Our plan is to scale our activities to other areas as well, so we can reach the nearly 4 million internally displaced people living inside Iraq.

The new version of our mobile search tool eases two-way messaging on the platform and makes registration clearer. For instance, users will receive push-notifications when they receive a new message and can reply directly to that notification.

During our 5-day SMS campaign pilot, 1,032 individuals responded to the campaign and 337 completed registration. 3,268 pages of search results were viewed and 23,350 SMS messages were exchanged.

Asiacell-subscribers can search for missing friends and relatives by replying 1 to SMS shortcode 380. It is free to use the service.

Contact: Ida Jeng of REFUNITE. Mobile: + 45 31 49 31 93 / Email: ij@refunite.org.