The United Nations said on Tuesday it has had to suspend medical aid to hundreds of Iraqi refugees in Jordan who suffer from chronic diseases due to a budget shortfall. The UN refugee agency UNHCR said it has temporarily stopped medical assistance to 600 Iraqi families, some of whose members suffer from diseases like cancer and heart problems. 'The agency has requested 48 million dollars for 2009, but nearly half of this amount is still unavailable,' Dana Bajjali, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR in Amman, told selfnews. 'We are expecting to receive money from donors by the end of this year and solve this problem.' Bajjali said those suffering from chronic diseases receive from 6,000 to 20,000 dollars, depending on their health conditions. About 4.4 million Iraqis have fled their homes since the US-led invasion of 2003, with about 750,000 now living in Jordan, according to UN and Jordanian figures. The UNHCR, which has warned it would have to reduce or even suspend programmes to help hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees due to a funding shortfall, appealed last year for 261 million dollars for its Iraq operations. 