Global Policy Forum

By Ruth Gidley

International humanitarian agencies say they are keen to get to work in Iraq but, without security, they are unable to carry out assessments and Iraqi hospital workers cannot work in safety. The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said it would take on the task of feeding the entire Iraqi population for three months, before handing over to a national administration and market forces, while international NGOs will provide food for the most vulnerable.

David Wimhurst, spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, told AlertNet from Amman: "The main areas are water, sanitation and medical. The food situation is not stable but it's not catastrophic." Humanitarian workers said that years of sanctions and conflict had left Iraq with significant problems but its resources and educated population meant it was probably receiving disproportionate attention in comparison to its needs.

Three weeks after Saddam Hussein's statue was pulled down in Baghdad's al-Fardus Square, aid agencies are keen to be working inside Iraq. They are under pressure to be seen to be doing something but lack of military clearance means accurate and comprehensive assessments are likely to be possible only this week.

Wimhurst said that military and civilian representatives were using a common assessment form, and the information was collated by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). "That is being done partially, but it's not on a large scale throughout Iraq. That's something we want to increase soon," he said.

Military assessments of Iraq are divided into three categories -- permissive, uncertain and hostile. By the last week of April, much of the country -- apart from Baghdad -- was declared permissive but Ramiro Lopez Da Silva of OCHA said in mid-April that humanitarian workers found it more difficult to operate in the prevailing disorder than during full-scale fighting between Iraqi and coalition forces. "The lack of law and order poses a far greater threat than...two warring parties with whom you can negotiate," he said in a statement.

By April 24, the military said cities deemed permissive were Arbil, Dohuk, Hillah, Humza, Kerbala, Kirkuk, Mudaysis, Najaf, Nassiriya, Nukyhab, Rutba, Samawah, Shumali, Sulaimaniya, Sumali, Rumaithah, Rumaylah, Safwan, Qa'im, Umm Qasr, and Zubayr, as well as all of the Basra and Maysan districts. International staff of U.N. agencies began working in northern Iraq last week. Wimhurst said the U.N. would soon establish a permanent presence in the southern city of Basra, and hoped to move to Mosul in the north and Baghdad in the near future.

FOOD DISTRIBUTION

WFP spokesman Khaled Mansour told AlertNet from Amman that the organisation was doing day-trip assessments from Kuwait, but would have 700 of its international staff back within days. The WFP is planning to re-activate for three months the pre-war food distribution system that operated under the oil-for-food programme.

About 60 percent of the population was estimated to be dependent on food rations in place since 1997 to offset the effects on civilians of international sanctions. WFP executive director James Morris said that no one was likely to starve in Iraq. Mansour said there were different levels of need. "The picture changes from the urban guys to the rural population, from the more well-to-do compared to the poorer sectors."

Wimhurst said: "There are shortages of milk, rice, oil. Prices of food that is available on the market have soared by 200 percent, so the sooner that situation can stabilise, the better." Mansour said the Iraqi government used to distribute half a million tonnes of food every month, and the WFP wanted to have at least this quantity of supplies in Iraq by mid May, ready for the first distribution. He said Ministry of Trade officials were still running silos, mills and warehouses and ensuring security for these facilities, and the WFP was in contact with 440,000 shops, known as food and flour agents.

Mansour said the distribution programme would allow time for the WFP to assess food needs and for the new administration to put market mechanisms in place or establish its own ration system. "Our hope is by August we will dramatically scale down our support for the public administration system and go down to the vulnerable groups that will be pinpointed by our assessments -- elderly people, the handicapped, social institutions, orphanages. "Maybe we will decrease caseload by about 75 or 80 percent, from the entire population to two or three million."

He said that if sanctions were lifted and Iraq could sell its oil, then market forces would bring in food. Mansour said it would make no difference to the WFP who was in control of the country. "If the government or whatever authority takes over in Iraq fails to provide for its people and if the market forces fail to make people have enough money to buy food in the market, then they will need external assistance.

"What form it would take would depend on the level of internal need and how donors support us." Mansour said that Iraq had not been self-sufficient in food production for some time. "In the last six or seven decades, since they discovered oil, they used to import two-thirds of their needs. They have been doing that under the oil-for-food programme with Iraqi money."

The WFP said it had been in talks with more than 15 NGOs over the past few of months about involvement in food distribution and had reached tentative agreements. Mansour said: "Some NGOs will take care of school feeding throughout the country. One NGO will take care of hospital feeding throughout the country."

The WFP would probably work with Action Against Hunger, CARE, Concern, Médecins sans Frontií¨res (MSF), Mercy Corps, Premií¨re Urgence and Save the Children USA, among others, to distribute food to institutions, he added. He said these NGOs would not be involved in public food distribution. "You have food agents, you have ration cards, there's no need to re-invent the wheel."

'IT'S NOT SAFE'

The U.N.'s Wimhurst said security overshadowed all humanitarian activities. "Gunfire is heard at day and during the night all around the city, so it's still not safe," he said. Nada Doumani of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told AlertNet: "We need security inside hospitals, in water stations, security for people to come to work."

Looting was still a problem. For example, the ICRC replaced window panes in Al Rashad psychiatric hospital -- which was looted and damaged in early April -- but the new glass was stolen almost immediately. Wimhurst said that some of Baghdad's 33 hospitals had been looted so badly that they could barely function.

"Iraqi staff who work in hospitals or in schools or garbage collection or water pumping and electricity aren't being paid," he said. "There's no money. They're working on a volunteer basis. So it's very important that these people get paid, at least to sustain them and their families."

People were unable to get to work, Doumani said. "Public transport is not working properly yet, and people are frightened to leave their homes in case they are looted." MSF said some hospitals were without oxygen and anaesthetics and there was a shortage of wheelchairs, but MSF president Morten Rostrup said the country's standard of health care was "pretty advanced". Wimhurst said: "It's not just a question of dealing with war wounded, it's dealing with the regular health care needs of the population -- cancer patients people who are diabetic, people who need dialysis. With the looting of the equipment and the failure of the cold supplies to store drugs, that's a critical area where supplies need to be brought in."

Doumani said Baghdad hospitals needed medications such as insulin and vaccinations for measles, polio and meningitis. Hospitals, health centres and supply warehouses were looted in the northern town of Kirkuk, according to the World Health Organisation, but Zubayr hospital in the south of the country was running and stocked. Doumani said. "It's not up to the ICRC to re-organise the health system. You need people in charge, and we are not going to nominate them and nor are the NGOs.

"The final responsibility lies with the coalition forces who are the occupying forces at this stage. "Luckily enough they are British and American , which means they do have the means to do it. They have the structure, they have the people, now they have this U.S. Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA). So let it work."

INTERMITTENT POWER

Doumani said power shortages were still a problem for hospitals in Baghdad, where electricity capacity was 30 or 40 percent. "A generator can't work twenty-four hours a day, and it can't give the same level of provision," she said. "Electricity is not stable anywhere," said Wimhurst. "It tends to come on for a certain number of hours a day and then turn off again."

He said that military engineers had played an important role in restoring electricity to the centre of Basra, where it was knocked out at the start of the war, but the suburbs were still largely without power. Wimhurst said electricity was functioning at 80 percent in Mosul and water and power in Kirkuk were at normal levels. Power shortages have had a serious effect on Iraq's sophisticated water system, as many agencies predicted before the war.

CRITICAL WATER NEEDS

Doumani said there was often insufficient pressure for water in Baghdad. Wimhurst said water had to be boiled before drinking, and purification chemicals were in short supply. Doumani said about 60 percent of Baghdad's water needs were covered, compared with 80-90 percent before the war.

Coalition forces and agencies such as the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the ICRC have taken water into Iraq by truck, according to OCHA. Carol Bellamy, executive director of UNICEF -- the lead agency for water and sanitation in Iraq -- said the worst-affected regions were Baghdad and the south of the country.

An ICRC assessment found water problems in the southern towns of Zubayr and Safwan. "The whole system needs rehabilitation, especially Basra. Nobody took care of the system before the war started," Doumani said. She said Basra had water, but its quality was poor.

GARBAGE PILING UP

Wimhurst said sanitation was a serious problem and garbage could contaminate water supplies. He said that rubbish was piling up in the streets and garbage trucks had been stolen by looters, so people were trying to burn it in some places.

"It's a serious threat to public health and one that really needs to be quickly brought under control," he said. Wimhurst said that there were fears that pollution in Nassiriya could lead to cholera outbreaks. Children were playing in the garbage, he said.. "There's unexploded bombs in these piles as well and we've had kids being injured," he said.

UNEXPLODED BOMBS

Unexploded bombs and ammunition were a problem throughout Iraq, Wimhurst said. This was illustrated last week when an ammunition dump blew up in the Zaafaraniya area of southeast Baghdad, killing at least 12 people and injuring others.

Wimhurst said "Those sites that should be protected and moved out of residential areas as soon as possible for complete destruction." He said there were daily reports from northern Iraq of people being injured by landmines. "We need to do demining, we need to deal with unexploded ordnance. There's a huge need for that across the country."

TRAUMATISED CHILDREN

Wimhurst said there were significant mental health needs in Iraq, especially for children. "It's very important that they get back to school as quickly as possible and have some sort of normalcy reinstituted in their lives." He said UNICEF was distributing materials so that children could start classes again.

DISPLACEMENT FEARS UNFOUNDED

The nightmare displacement scenarios that NGOs predicted, and for which they tried to prepare, did not materialise. Although many people temporarily fled their homes in the days before the U.S.-led bombing campaign began in late March, agencies said they since returned. Some Arabs in northern Iraq said they had been forced by Kurds to leave their homes and there might be a need for a system of justice to deal with conflicting land claims.

INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON

MSF said last week that, despite pressing needs, there was no sign of a serious humanitarian crisis in Iraq. "We have more work and more pressing needs in Africa where people are starving in some countries, while in Iraq you don't really have until now an extreme food shortage," Mansour said. "It's not like the case in Ethiopia where the government doesn't have revenues to take care of the people and you will definitely have to have external assistance. This is not the same kind of crisis."

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