Oxfam International Iraq crisis Update 7

By Gary Iveson
Reuters AlertNet
http://www.alertnet.org/
Oxfam GB - UK
Website: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/
Iraq Crisis Update
30th May 2003

1.Oxfam’s relief programme Iraq

Water and Sanitation

Oxfam now has teams in Baghdad, Basra and Nasiriyah, with a western and central Iraq team making assessment visits to Iraq from Jordan. We have a formal working agreement with the United Nations’ Children’s agency, UNICEF, to provide clean water and sanitation systems to people in Iraq.

Oxfam are undertaking large-scale 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.

Health

The health and water/sanitation situation remains chronic, with a high risk of outbreak of disease. There are now 51 cases of cholera in Basra and a monitoring system has been set up in Nasiriyah. The shortage of available gas cylinders means people are not able to boil their water to kill the bacteria in it.

While diarrhoeal diseases are reported to be fewer than a week ago in Nasiriyah, patients are not coming to clinics because there are few drugs and they cannot afford to pay. General health surveillance is poor and lab testing facilities are in need of equipment. Oxfam is preparing for a possible cholera outbreak. Our staff have visited primary health care centres and found some looted of all their equipment. It’s now leishmaniasis season and the incidence rate is up. This sandfly-borne disease mainly affects children under five years old. Oxfam will be assisting with a leishmaniasis prevention and control programme in the area.

Public Health Promotion

Oxfam public health promoters in southern Iraq are working closely with other aid agencies and local health professionals to encourage integration and cooperation between doctors, clinics and hospitals. In general, standards of medical care are poor. Prior to the conflict all health activities were organised from Baghdad. There is a feeling that the south may be forgotten and a need for Oxfam to influence at a ministerial level and lobby for improved health systems and to promote community health in collaboration with other NGOs.

Food availability

There is food available for purchase in the region, but at higher prices than ever before. Meanwhile, most people are no longer receiving salaries. There is a high dependency on World Food Programme rations, and the next distribution is due in June. Oxfam is identifying vulnerable groups of people, especially those who missed out on food distribution system.

Assessment in western Iraq

On 24th May the first cross border assessment visit by the Oxfam Central Iraq team took place in Rutbah with ICRC. Since then the team has also visited Hillah and Karbala (central Iraq). The team has set up a new office in Ruweished as a base for staff working cross-border.

Medical Supplies

Oxfam has been helping supply Architects for People in Need’s (APN) clinics and others in Baghdad throughout the war, providing funds and medical supplies with the All Our Children NGO consortium. The latest shipment from Jordan contained syringes, needles, surgical gloves, examination tables and other crucial pieces of medical equipment.

Much more is needed for APN’s seven clinics, where power comes from old and unreliable generators. There is a desperate need for kerosene-fuelled fridges to keep drugs and samples cold. Supplies run short all the time. APN have requested a secondment from Oxfam of a Water Engineer to help build and repair clean water systems for the clinics.

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.

Jordan

In Jordan, Oxfam is working alongside the UN in refugee camps. Oxfam has provided water and sanitation systems and public health promotion. The Ruweished refugee camp now has about 800 refugees, all of Palestinian origin.

There is an additional emergency camp at Al Ramada for people who have not been allowed across the Jordanian border – around 1500 of them Iranian Kurds who were already refugees in Iraq in a camp called Al Tash, about 20 km from Baghdad. 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. For them to be moved on from here, the international community must be sure their safety can be guaranteed.

2. Next Steps for Oxfam

Oxfam’s work will cover areas of need in Iraq including water and plumbing systems (large and small), food and nutrition, and public health promotion.

§ We are currently developing plans to encourage community mobilisation towards improved living conditions in southern Iraq

§ We will expand our joint assessments with UNICEF into additional southern governorates

§ Discussions are underway with the Jordanian Hashemite Charitable Organisation concerning requests for assistance they have received from western Iraq

§ Our southern Iraq team is working on a proposal to continue and expand our water and sanitation response for the period 1st July to 31st October

§ We will be expanding our Quick Impact Projects (QUIPS) 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

Security

The complete lack of basic services is of critical concern, but without improved security it is difficult to see how essentials such as electricity supply and normal health care can be restored. Numerous security incidents happen daily in the capital. These include looting, banditry, ambushes, car-jacking, physical attacks and killings. Schools have reopened but most parents are concerned about their children's safety. NGOs have become a target for attack as they clearly have money as well as valuable equipment and vehicles. Many humanitarian aid agencies have been frustrated by not being able to get into Iraq until their safety can be guaranteed, accusing Coalition Forces of not doing enough to ensure the safety of staff and goods. Just this week we have heard that the coalition military will be instructed to deal with all looting very seriously.

Insecurity is by far the biggest issue in Baghdad. Systems have broken down with women and girls being abducted at gunpoint and reports of rape. Intermittent shooting day and night has become commonplace and coalition forces report being shot at every time they try to use the underpasses. Small arms are freely available in local markets and people are scared. Unlike two months ago, people in Baghdad no longer go out after dark. Many are scared to leave their houses at all for fear of looters. Those that do work have to leave early to get home before the gunfire and thieving starts.

The widely advertised joint patrols of Iraqi police and US forces have been spotted only once and most people in the poorer Shia areas have never seen a coalition soldier. The Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid (ORHA, military run department) reports that 18 police stations have reopened in Baghdad but currently there are no night patrols. The UN security agency UNSECORD reports that there is “something like urban guerrilla warfare” underway in Baghdad with around five armed attacks on coalition forces per day.

Areas of the city like the poor Shiite district of al-Sadr (formerly Saddam City) remain no-go areas for the coalition. Here there are vast amounts of weapons available – just $2-$5 for a Kalashnikov.

Basra and Nassiriya continue to be unstable with looting in the town both day and night. In Basra there is often much shooting in the evening just after dark and around the area of the three hotels housing UN and NGO staff.

The UN has just tightened its security restrictions on travel in the south of Iraq. Now the road from Basra will require four vehicle convoys with a minimum of two persons per vehicle. With limited vehicles and staff this new requirement essentially makes the UN powerless to undertake any field work in southern Iraq, and will have a devastating effect on their visibility.

Food

Iraqi agriculture is on the brink of collapse, with fears that many of its 24.5 million people will go hungry this summer, according to a report being studied by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation. A special UN assessment reveals a catastrophe in the making, with crops and poultry being especially hard hit.

A number of post-war problems need to be solved urgently in order to ensure that 60 percent of Iraqis get the heavily-subsidised food rations that they have depended on for so long.

Nutrition rates in Baghdad show that 7.7 per cent of children under fives are suffering from acute malnutrition, compared with last year’s figure of 4 per cent.

WFP is undertaking assessments to Karabala and Hillah along with some food distribution.

Population Movement

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is preparing for the return of up to 500,000 Iraqi refugees, mainly from Iran and Jordan. UNCHR has recently held discussions with Shi'a leaders in An Najaf in southern Iraq to send messages to tribal leaders to ease pressure on Iranian refugees living in the area.

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