The United Nations' refugee agency on Tuesday appealed for international aid for nearly 4 million Iraqis driven from their homes by conflict, and for those sheltering them inside and outside Iraq.

About 2 million Iraqis have fled to Syria and Jordan, whose governments are struggling "without any meaningful support from outside," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said at the start of a two-day international conference.

Another 1.9 million Iraqis are uprooted within their homeland, racked by insurgency and sectarian violence.

"It is time that the international community responded with genuine solidarity and unstinting aid to displaced Iraqis and to the states housing them," Guterres said.

His agency, UNHCR, says up to 50,000 Iraqis flee their homes each month in an exodus linked to pervasive violence, poor basic services, loss of jobs and an uncertain future.

Although the gathering is not a donor conference, U.N. officials hope it will put pressure on Western states to provide more financial help and take more Iraqi asylum-seekers.

U.N. emergency relief coordinator John Holmes said relief needs extended to those still living in their own homes in a country that had already suffered from years of neglect, sanctions and war prior to the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

"Up to 8 million Iraqi civilians are now in urgent need of humanitarian relief. That is around 4 million more even than those who are internally or externally displaced."

He said Iraq was the "second worst funded humanitarian crisis worldwide".

But he also said that, for now, insecurity precluded a massive return of U.N. aid workers to Iraq, withdrawn after the bombing of the U.N. Baghdad headquarters in August 2003.

"IRAQ WILL TAKE LEAD"

Guterres is chairing the talks following recent missions to Baghdad and other parts of the region to highlight the crisis.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, U.S. Under-Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky and senior European officials were among more than 450 officials from 60 countries attending.

"We've come here with a very clear message, that these are our people, that the Iraqi government will take the lead in addressing the needs of its people," Zebari told Reuters Television. "We have concrete ideas and we will raise them here."

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) reported that about half of Iraq's 15 central and southern provinces, including Basra, were turning away newly displaced people unless they could prove they originated from there.

"If they can't get it inside Iraq, they will end up becoming refugees in neighbouring countries which are already sheltering about 2 million Iraqis and greatly stretched," Rafiq Tschannen, IOM's chief of mission for Iraq, said in a statement.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the world's largest disaster relief agency, on Tuesday appealed for 18.2 million Swiss francs ($15.0 million), mainly for health services for 100,000 displaced Iraqi families.