Tom Murphy
RedwoodAge.com
As the legislatures of both the US and Iraq take month-long vacations, international relief workers warn that one in three Iraqis are in dire need of emergency assistance.
Some 8 million Iraqis have been impoverished, injured, sickened or otherwise left in desperate conditions by the 4-1/2-year-old war, according to Oxfam and the NGO Coordination Committee working in Iraq.
The victims include 4 million refugees, more than half of whom have fled in poverty to neighboring Syria or Jordan, according to Amnesty International and UN refugee groups. Iraqis now rank behind only the Sudanese and Palestinians as the world's most-displaced people.
While most of the debate within the US has focused on deaths within the American military, the US also has responsibility under international law to care for the residents of a country it occupies.
Prior to the war in Afghanistan, the US established elaborate plans to handle refugees. But this effort is sorely lacking in Iraq, where Bush predicted Americans would be greeted as liberators after the 2003 invasion.
"Basic services, ruined by years of war and sanctions, cannot meet the needs of the Iraqi people," said Jeremy Hobbs, the director of Oxfam International, according to The AP. "Millions of Iraqis have been forced to flee the violence, either to another part of Iraq or abroad. Many of those are living in dire poverty."
The report said 15 percent of Iraqis cannot regularly afford to eat, and 70 percent are without adequate water supplies, up from 50 percent in 2003. It also said 28 percent of children are malnourished, compared with 19 percent before the 2003 invasion.
Electricity in Baghdad, once a technology hub in the Arab world, is limited to a few hours a day for those lucky enough to have it at all. While the Iraqi parliament is taking a month off due to the extreme heat in August, there is no electricity to power air conditioners. Temperatures in Bagdhad regularly exceed 105 and can reach into the teens during August.
The US has accepted only 133 refugees with a pledge to take another 7,000. Critics said the US must to more, particularly in providing aid to Jordon and Syria, where the refugees are “threatening a humanitarian crisis that could engulf the region unless concerted international action is taken now," said Malcolm Smart, head of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Program.
"Many refugees said they received no food and that their savings had dried up,” the group said in a statement, adding some refugees said they’d been tortured and raped.
The U.N. refugee agency estimates 50,000 people flee Iraq every month, mostly to neighboring Jordan and Syria.
Unkept Promise
Amnesty's statement criticized the Iraqi government, saying that $25 million
pledged by Baghdad has not materialized. It also blasted the US, EU, Britain and
other states for their lack of help.
"This is a crisis that was made in Iraq, not in Syria or Jordan, and the Iraqi authorities have a duty now to help its neighbors meet the needs of Iraqis who have been displaced," the group said. Syrian and Jordan "should not be left to bear the weight of this crisis alone."
Jordan and Syria say they’ve been ignored by western countries.
Milad Atiya, the Syrian ambassador to Jordan, said other countries "must be involved, especially the United States because its policy led to the plight the Iraqis are currently in and it bears responsibility."
"The U.S. offer to take in 7,000 refugees is symbolic," said Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed Haji Hmoud. "This is not a solution. Seven thousand is nothing."
Children Left Behind
The UN is seeking $129 million to educate tens of thousands of Iraqi children
who fled to Syria and Jordan to escape Iraq's violence.
"Many have no access to school," said Judy Cheng-Hopkins, the U.N. refugee agency's head of operations. "The facilities are fully over-stretched."
Cheng-Hopkins said donor countries and organizations must come forward with funds. "Otherwise we would be left with a whole generation of uneducated and possibly alienated youth," she said.
"The Iraqi government must commit to helping Iraq's poorest citizens, including the internally displaced, by extending food parcel distribution and cash payments to the vulnerable. Western donors must work through Iraqi and international aid organizations and develop more flexible systems to ensure these organizations operate effectively and efficiently," Hobbs said.
Oxfam has not operated in Iraq since 2003 for security reasons, but a survey it published in April found that more than 80 percent of aid agencies working in the country could do more if they had more money.
Some humanitarian organizations refuse money from governments with troops in Iraq, on the grounds of security and independence.
"The fighting and weak Iraqi institutions mean there are severe limits on what humanitarian work can be carried out. Nevertheless, more can and should be done to help the Iraqi people," Hobbs said.
RedwoodAge news services contributed to this report.
