Iraq Mired In Violence And Disease

More than three months after Baghdad fell to US forces some Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) warn of a potential humanitarian catastrophe in which up to 300,000 Iraqi children may face death

By Carol Roper: 15 July 2003

These are desperate times for Iraqis. In many parts of the country the temperature in the shade reaches 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) and, in a country where the air-conditioning no longer works, tempers are rising. Shooting, looting and car-jackings have become the norm. This feeds a growing perception that life has deteriorated since the toppling of Saddam's regime in April. Liberation was never meant to look like this.

Joe Stork, advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, asserts that the Coalition Provisional Authority headed by Paul Bremer has been unable to restore security and that any plans there might have been to do so are proving impossible to implement. "The occupying powers, chief among them the United States, have done a poor job of providing basic security for Iraqis," Stork told The Inquisitor in a recent interview. "This is the responsibility of the occupying power under international law, specifically the Geneva Convention, to provide security."

This view is expressed increasingly by other NGOs in Iraq, who are dismayed by the rapid collapse of basic infrastructure, including power, water, sewage, hospitals and schools.

Insecurity and violence are on the rise, for obvious reasons. Prior to the Anglo-US invasion the Iraqi government handed out an estimated 6 million guns to the population. Each of 30,000 Ba'ath party officials received at least one. Upon taking power, Bremer fired senior and mid-level Ba'athist officials from all government posts and retired the 400,000-strong army and security forces. People were ordered to hand in their weapons, but few have done so and this has culminated in the house-to-house searches that have so incensed the Iraqis. Today, in Baghdad, one can buy a Kalashnikov assault rifle for $20.

Tons of rubbish lie uncollected in the streets and block the drains alongside meat sellers' stalls where children play in the dirt. In some areas the sewage spills onto the streets creating lakes of human waste - ideal breeding grounds for water-borne diseases like cholera and dysentery and a refuge for the sand flies that transmit black fever.

According to CARE, the international emergency aid group, about two million tons of raw sewage are dumped into Iraq's rivers every day, four times the amount before the war. In Basra, it seeps from the canals into the irrigation channels that are used for drinking and bathing. In Baghdad, 300,000 tons escapes into the Tigris daily. For many, there is no other water source. Ironically, prior to the 1991 war, Iraq was the only Arab country in which 90% of the population had access to clean water and people enjoyed some of the highest living standards in the Middle East.

Today's deteriorating situation is compounded by the lack of electricity and cooking fuel which prevent them from boiling water. Given the scorching temperatures, and the fact that 50% of Iraq's population have no access to clean drinking water, conditions are now ripe for an epidemic. Inevitably, it is the children who are most at risk from disease and death through dehydration.

"This is only the beginning of the summer of diarrhea," says Anne Morris, CARE emergency response director in Iraq. "If proper monitoring, testing and prevention mechanisms are not quickly put back in place, the breeding ground will spill over the brim of the cup. The entire Iraqi population is at risk of a public health crisis."

According to UNICEF, the health situation of children in Iraq today remains highly tenuous with 72% of children suffering from diarrhea, the prime cause of infant death. This number has more than doubled since the occupation began. Just two months ago, UNICEF reported that 300,000 children were facing death, four times the number that had died under Saddam's regime in February.

As bad as Saddam's regime was, things are even worse now. "Iraq was not a failed country before," says Morris. "Sick people could go to hospital and be treated, and diseases endemic to Iraq were monitored closely by the ministry of health. Now there's no monitoring or prevention activities, and hospitals and clinics are running out of medical supplies."

While it is not the job of aid agencies to restore power and fix water and sewage installations, CARE has supplied some hospitals with generators to ensure they have at least some power and are able to refrigerate medicines and carry out operations. Sanctions may have ended, but hospitals are under-equipped to deal with the current crisis of water- and food-borne diseases. Like the rest of the country, they rely on an intermittent supply of electricity - the average is just two hours a day in Baghdad - and back-up generators that produce 30-40% of all power.

Britain's Guardian newspaper reports that in one hospital in Khalis, a city of 40,000, "doctors are now seeing 200 patients daily, all suffering from severe diarrhea. In addition they see seven new typhoid patients (each day)." This hospital has run out of essential supplies, including oxygen and antibiotics, and the diesel fuel needed for its generator is running low. Surgeons operate by candlelight, using water sparingly. Like many other employees of the state, doctors have not received wages for the past three months.

"What is happening in Iraq is an unusual crisis," Morris explains. "There is no famine or acute outbreak of disease. However, the significant layers of government are now gone. If ministries are not soon reinstated, basic infrastructure will continue to crumble and the Iraq people will suffer the consequences."

The country's bombed and looted water filtration and sewage treatment plants are mostly inoperational but some plants have been mended by Western NGOs. So far, American and British forces have shown little willingness or ability to help restore either water systems or the electricity plants that power them. One can only wonder how many more months will go by and how many more children will die of disease before the deteriorating situation is finally addressed.