Oxfam is undertaking emergency infrastructure work that will benefit many areas, urban and rural, in southern Iraq. Pumping stations are being rehabilitated and our partners UNICEF are bringing in large supplies of chlorine gas, vital for water treatment. The system relies on sweet water being pumped south from Nasiriyah to Basra where it is treated. Many areas further south rely on this water as much of the local water is saline.

Oxfam public health promoters in southern Iraq are working closely with local health professionals to encourage integration and cooperation between doctors, clinics and hospitals. Over the last few days, the Public Health Team has conducted brief surveys of both the quantity and quality of water supply, as well as looking into the sanitation in local people’s homes. While in most areas it was found that water supply had improved since before the war, some areas at higher ground and at the end of the distribution mains are suffering from a lack of water.

Baghdad
An All Our Children convoy, partly funded by Oxfam, arrived in Baghdad this week, carrying basic supplies for health clinics and hospitals. Oxfam has been helping supply Architects for People in Need (APN) clinics and others throughout the war, sending medical supplies with the All Our Children NGO consortium. This latest shipment from Jordan contained syringes, needles, surgical gloves, gynaecological examination tables and other crucial bits of medical equipment.

Much more is needed for APN’s seven clinics. Power is supplied by old and unreliable generators and there’s desperate need for kerosene-fuelled fridges to keep drugs and samples cold. Supplies run short all the time and no member of the APN staff of 60 has had a day off in two months.

The doctors are now seeing fewer war injuries than there were a few weeks ago – but there’s typhoid, skin diseases, burns. There is certainly cholera, but no lab facilities to check the extent of the outbreak.

Water is the key to many of the problems here, and one of Oxfam’s jobs in Baghdad this last ten days has been to lobby the coalition-run Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, reminding officers of their duty not just to return the infrastructure of Iraq back to its pre-war state, but, as the Occupying Power, to meet all the needs of Iraq’s people. Additionally, Oxfam’s Senior Humanitarian Representative is working with the United Nations in Baghdad on a strategy for rebuilding the decayed water and hygiene system throughout Iraq.

Jordan
We are working alongside the UN in the Ruweished refugee camp in Jordan. This camp has about 800 refugees, all of Palestinian origin, a number which has been increasing at roughly 30 per day. Oxfam continues to provide water and sanitation systems and public health promotion.

There is an additional emergency camp, Karama, at Al Ramada for people who have not been allowed across the Jordanian border. Around 1,500 Iranian Kurds who were already refugees in Iraq in a camp called Al Tash, about 20 km west of Baghdad, are still at this camp. These people are ‘stuck’ in no-man’s land. UNHCR is looking at potential sites inside Iraq and there is a strong possibility that they will be asked to move away from Jordan. Oxfam does not believe that no-man’s land is an adequate site for such a camp, especially as there is no source of water nearby and water must be brought in from Ruweished – 60kms away. UNHCR and Oxfam want to see all the people transported to the camp at Ruweished, where there are better facilities for up to 20,000 people. Sanitary conditions at Karama are improving with Oxfam’s help, but community services, including education and recreation, are still absent.

Oxfam has a Food and Nutrition Specialist currently based in the Jordan office, working to identify particular food security needs in Iraq.

2. Next Steps for Oxfam

Western Iraq
Oxfam has set up a new office in Ruweished, Jordan, which will be a base for our staff working cross border into western and central Iraq. Oxfam’s water and health promotion programme will be moving into western Iraq later this week and once security allows we hope to go to Ar-Rutbah to assess the situation there and in the surrounding rural areas.

Discussions are also underway with the Jordanian Hashemite Charitable Organisation concerning requests for assistance that they have received from western Iraq. Our work will cover areas of need in Iraq including water and plumbing systems (large and small), food and nutrition, and public health promotion.

Southern Iraq
Oxfam hopes to expand its joint assessments with UNICEF into additional southern governorates. We are also keen to expand the successful grant making project in southern Iraq to include grants of much higher value.

We continue to keep our plans flexible to best meet the changing needs of the Iraqi people.

3. Current Humanitarian Situation

Oxfam’s assessment team’s findings confirm that the situation is one characterised by chronic needs due to years of under investment and progressive degradation of services. The shock of the war, followed by widespread looting, has left the population in an extremely vulnerable state. Insecurity remains the gravest risk and threat to stability and provision of assistance. No acute, widespread humanitarian needs have been reported or seen and this reaffirms that Oxfam should support local government departments in their efforts to progressively enable recovery of health, water and sewage infrastructure and capacity. However the road to recovery is long and the potential to “drop” into an acute crisis is great and assistance efforts must be geared to switching to emergency assistance if required.

During and immediately after the military conflict, the water and sanitation conditions deteriorated and in some places system functioning stopped altogether due to the destruction by war and widespread looting. The potential impact of these conditions on the health of the children and other vulnerable groups is severe and their effects are immediate. Water and sanitation facilities are in poor condition and the whole system is very dependent on electricity supplied from the main grid, which had completely stopped and remains very erratic. This has contributed to the deterioration of the systems and the networks. Other factors such as illegal water tapping from the main water pipeline also affected some areas.