IRAQ: Bombs Begin to Hit Also the Survivors

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Mar 27 2003 (IPS) - The massive bombardment of Iraq is causing heavy casualties, but it is also beginning to have an impact on those who survive it, as the World Health Organisation staff in the capital report that the continued bombings are beginning to have a serious impact on the mental and physical well being of the population, particularly children.

The massive bombardment of Iraq is causing heavy casualties, but it is also beginning to have an impact on those who survive it, as feared.

"World Health Organisation staff in the capital report that the continuing bombardment is beginning to have a serious impact on the mental and physical wellbeing of the population, particularly children and other vulnerable groups," WHO said in a statement Thursday.

"The bombardment makes it extremely difficult for medical staff to get to those who may need medical assistance, including women in labour," WHO said. "It also means that people who need medical help are unable or unwilling to seek it because of the potential danger."

The damage is being done by lack of sleep and by fear, officials at WHO say. "Clearly, the longer this situation prevails, and the worse it gets, the greater the damage will be to the lives of the civilian population," a WHO spokesman in Geneva told IPS.

An International Study Team (IST) based in Canada had warned in a report late January that war would mean a "grave humanitarian disaster" for Iraq’s 13 million children. The experts found that 500,000 Iraqi children are already malnourished.

The immediate concern is not, however, the long-term consequences for the children but their immediate need for food, and above all clean drinking water.

WHO has established that for now, there are no disease outbreaks in Baghdad or the surrounding areas, and that hospitals in and around the capital have not so far reported any lack of medical supplies or staff. But WHO officials report also that the situation is precarious and could change rapidly.

UNICEF is providing relief through about 200 staff in Baghdad and other cities including Basra to ensure clean water supplies. As an agency that works primarily with children, UNICEF has developed considerable expertise in water supplies in Iraq. It has mobile units, which can provide clean water regularly to about 600,000 people.

Several aid organisations are rushing assistance to prevent a catastrophe. "We sent a supply of medicines and first aid kits from Baghdad to Basra Thursday," Fiona Callister from the London- based charity Cafod told IPS. The supply followed an appeal by Archbishop Gibrael Kassab of Basra, she said.

"We have also sent chlorine tablets that would be enough to clean 1.5 million litres of water," she said. "But that is enough only to meet the needs of 100,000 people for one day. We are sending another six million tablets from Amman to Baghdad for further distribution."

Care International is operating through 30 Iraqi staff in Baghdad to stockpile water bladders, emergency fuel and lactose-free milk for sick children. It is also working along with other groups in setting up refugee camps with extensive medical facilities on the Iraq- Jordan border.

Several aid agencies are, however, severely curtailed in what they can do. Oxfam has no staff in Iraq "because of the security situation," a spokeswoman told IPS. "We will try to go in as soon as we can."

For now a WHO team in Iraq, working with largely local staff, is trying to help keep the health system functioning. The staff is working with the national authorities to distribute medicines and other medical supplies in northern Iraq.

WHO staff say the health of the population in Basra "is under serious threat from the lack of access to safe, clean drinking water."

But there are fears that such efforts are severely under-resourced at present. The water crisis could be followed very soon by a food crisis.

James T Morris, executive director of the World Food Programme, says the WFP is facing major difficulties in trying to ensure that the population of Iraq have enough food and water, and on time. The WFP says this crisis comes on top of the critical needs in Africa where it has been struggling to provide food to more than 35 million people who face a "severe hunger crisis."

The WFP has supplies to feed about two million people for a month in Iraq. But Morris says those supplies could prove desperately short.