|
|
ARCHIVE:
UN Humanitarian Briefing, Baghdad
[3 May - 17 July 2003]

UN Humanitarian Briefing
Canal Hotel, Baghdad22 May
UNOHCI Veronique TAVEAU, Spokesperson for the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq
Yesterday the humanitarian coordinator for Iraq Ramiro Lopes da Silva went to 3 sites in Baghdad, a warehouse, a power plant and a sewage plant to assess the humanitarian situation. In Rusa fa he visited the WFP warehouse and then went to the south power plant . In the power plant the main concern raised by the manager was the payment of the salaries and the lack of security for the technicians that work on the transmission lines. He said to us that while they are operating in the lines the looters "the ali babas" as they call them, are taking away their vehicles, their tools . The situation of lack of law and order is impacting on the ability of the Iraqis to reactivate the basic services.
The WFP warehouse and the power plant are under the protection of the coalition forces, no looting has taken place since they have been protected. This is not the case at the Al Rutsumia sewage treatment plant. The Coordinator noticed that the site was not protected and he was told that looters were operating on a daily basis. This is an issue that he will raise with OHRA, the site needs protection. That plant covers with a population estimated to 3.5million people. Due to massive bombing during the war and looting that has occurred within the plants sites, the operation of the main two sewage treatments plants in Baghdad has stopped. Consequently 1 million tons of raw sewage are discharged to the Tigris and Diyala Rivers every day. ( Baghdad has a population of 6 million inhabitants..)
Prior to the conflict, in 2002, The United Nations Development Programme, UNDP and ECHO, the European Union, started the rehabilitation of this plant. All that work was almost finished. Now that everything has been looted, we have to start from scratch. The problem is that if we spent about $1.8 million at that time, we probably, need to spend $4 to $5 million to get to the same stage we were prior to the looting.
Today the Coordinator will visit a spontaneous settlement of 70 displaced and dispossessed Iraqi including many children. This group has occupied a group of dilapidated and partially destroyed building which lack sufficient water and sanitation facilities. The surrounding area is littered with unexploded ordinance.
On the security issue
We have noticed a significant increase of black market activities and weapon smuggling. People are not only buying them but testing them in the street and that increase the volume of night shooting and the falling down of bullets. Group of teenagers are seen in the street carrying AK 47.
UNICEF Geoffrey Keele Spokesperson
UNICEF is currently working throughout the country assessing the state of Iraq's hospitals, schools, and vital water and sanitation infrastructure, as well as meeting the most immediate and urgent needs of the people of the country.
In the south, UNICEF has funded 30 Assessment teams to investigate the water situation in the southern governorates. While testing for water quality in Basra City, the assessment teams were shocked to find that at one third of the sites they visited they could not test for water quality, because there was no water at all.
The reason for this was simple. People continue to either pound or shoot holes into the water distribution pipes to steal the water that comes gushing out. As the water gushes out, it reduces the water pressure and further down the line there is no water at all.
This is having two very major impacts. Firstly, people in need simply can not access water because of the looters. In one case, the pipes feeding into the Basra General Hospital have been punctured so many times further up the line that by the time the pipes reach the hospital, there is nothing left. The hospital has only a two day supply of water left before it completely runs out.
In another case, a pipe that is laying under a pool of stagnant water has been intentionally punctured to get at the fresh water. Now, children and women are wadding through the pools of stagnant water to fetch clean water, and the dirty water is leaking into the pipe, contaminating it for those further down the distribution chain.
This is has obvious health risks for the people of Basra, and when I visited there last week all of the pediatric hospitals I visited told UNICEF about the steep rise in diarrheal disease they were seeing.
To assist with this situation, UNICEF is sending water tankers to the hospital to ensure that their merger supplies do not run out. We are also assessing the main water distribution network so that we can undertake repairs. The problem is that these repairs need to be accompanied by security, and that is something UNICEF can not provide. That is the responsibility of the coalition forces and it is a job that needs doing now.
UNICEF will also be conducting countrywide assessments of Iraq's school to get a clearer picture of the state of the country's post-war education system. UNICEF will start by assessing 4,000 school in the five southern governorates this week.
In Baghdad, UNICEF is currently delivering "School in a Box" kits to schools around the city. In fact today we delivered enough school supplies for 4,800 children to Zafarania. UNICEF also delivered High Protein Biscuits (HPB) and Oral Re-hydration Salts (ORS) to hospitals in the same neighbourhood.
Antonia Paradela Spokesperson World Food Programme
WFP's Executive Director will be giving an address today to the Security
Council. These are background notes about WFP activities in Iraq.
WFP and Iraq
WFP's main task is to support the Public Distribution System (PDS), that
before the war used to distribute food rations to the whole Iraqi
population through a network of 44,000 food and flour agents. The PDS
belongs to the Ministry of Trade. Most of the food distributed by the PDS
came into the country as part of the Oil for Food programme. The amount
distributed each month was about 480,000 tons of food.
WFP will also focus on vulnerable groups such as internally displaced
people, malnourished children, hospitals, orphanages, etc.
The daily adult ration distributed through the Public Distribution System
includes 300g of wheat flour, 100g rice, 50g pulses, 25g vegetable oil, 5g
salt and 33 g of dried whole milk ? a daily energy value of 2,280 kcal and
56g protein.
On a monthly basis that means: 9 kg of wheat flour, 3kg of rice, 1.5 kg of
pulses, 1.5 kg vegetable oil, 2 kg of sugar, 0.2 kg tea, 1 kg dried whole
milk, also salt, detergent, soap, and baby formula for infants.
The food and flour agents, normally shopkeepers, come and pick up their
allocations once a month and they distribute it to the families in their
neighbourhood or village. They charge for each person per month 250 dinars
(about the price of a piece of bread) for the whole ration food basket. The
families come with their ration card once a month to pick up their food.
The system reaches the whole Iraqi population.
It is estimated that before the war the food ration was the only source of
income for about 16 million Iraqis. They would sell part of the food to
obtain other urgent needs.
Iraqis received extra rations since last summer from the government. This
means most of the people have food (or at least key elements such as wheat
flour) to last into June.
Food dispatched into Iraq by WFP since the beginning of April till May 21st
: about 264.000 tons = enough to feed the whole Iraqi population (27.1
million) for 15 days or half of the Iraqi population for a whole month.
|
|
| |
June, 2013 5, Wednesday
February, 2013 22, Friday
January, 2013 11, Friday
December, 2012 30, Sunday
27, Thursday
20, Thursday
6, Thursday
November, 2012 30, Friday
October, 2012 15, Monday
15, Monday
September, 2012 24, Monday
13, Thursday
4, Tuesday
August, 2012 24, Friday
2, Thursday
July, 2012 28, Saturday
19, Thursday
18, Wednesday
17, Tuesday
13, Friday
11, Wednesday
9, Monday
June, 2012 30, Saturday
30, Saturday
30, Saturday
27, Wednesday
27, Wednesday
22, Friday
14, Thursday
12, Tuesday
12, Tuesday
11, Monday
7, Thursday
7, Thursday
2, Saturday
1, Friday
May, 2012 31, Thursday
31, Thursday
30, Wednesday
30, Wednesday
29, Tuesday
29, Tuesday
28, Monday
28, Monday
26, Saturday
18, Friday
10, Thursday
9, Wednesday
8, Tuesday
April, 2012 21, Saturday
19, Thursday
12, Thursday
11, Wednesday
10, Tuesday
10, Tuesday
8, Sunday
February, 2011 9, Wednesday
7, Monday
January, 2011 18, Tuesday
16, Sunday
5, Wednesday
December, 2010 22, Wednesday
18, Saturday
16, Thursday
16, Thursday
9, Thursday
November, 2010 22, Monday
22, Monday
15, Monday
13, Saturday
October, 2010 15, Friday
15, Friday
14, Thursday
12, Tuesday
11, Monday
10, Sunday
30, Tuesday
30, Tuesday
28, Sunday
July, 2007 30, Monday
26, Thursday
23, Monday
23, Monday
17, Tuesday
16, Monday
10, Tuesday
June, 2007 11, Monday
May, 2007 21, Monday
14, Monday
8, Tuesday
April, 2007 23, Monday
17, Tuesday
9, Monday
8, Sunday
2, Monday
1, Sunday
March, 2007 26, Monday
19, Monday
17, Saturday
12, Monday
5, Monday
February, 2007 26, Monday
26, Monday
23, Friday
21, Wednesday
19, Monday
12, Monday
10, Saturday
1, Thursday
January, 2007 29, Monday
22, Monday
17, Wednesday
15, Monday
12, Friday
11, Thursday
8, Monday
5, Friday
December, 2006 31, Sunday
29, Friday
18, Monday
17, Sunday
11, Monday
11, Monday
10, Sunday
7, Thursday
7, Thursday
4, Monday
November, 2006 20, Monday
15, Wednesday
October, 2006 30, Monday
26, Thursday
22, Sunday
9, Monday
9, Monday
1, Sunday
September, 2006 30, Saturday
25, Monday
18, Monday
18, Monday
18, Monday
14, Thursday
13, Wednesday
11, Monday
11, Monday
10, Sunday
8, Friday
5, Tuesday
4, Monday
2, Saturday
August, 2006 31, Thursday
28, Monday
28, Monday
22, Tuesday
21, Monday
21, Monday
20, Sunday
18, Friday
17, Thursday
16, Wednesday
14, Monday
10, Thursday
9, Wednesday
7, Monday
1, Tuesday
July, 2006 30, Sunday
28, Friday
26, Wednesday
26, Wednesday
24, Monday
19, Wednesday
17, Monday
10, Monday
5, Wednesday
3, Monday
June, 2006 26, Monday
20, Tuesday
19, Monday
15, Thursday
12, Monday
7, Wednesday
5, Monday
May, 2006 29, Monday
29, Monday
22, Monday
15, Monday
15, Monday
13, Saturday
8, Monday
1, Monday
April, 2006 30, Sunday
27, Thursday
26, Wednesday
24, Monday
23, Sunday
17, Monday
11, Tuesday
10, Monday
7, Friday
3, Monday
March, 2006 30, Thursday
27, Monday
27, Monday
20, Monday
16, Thursday
15, Wednesday
14, Tuesday
6, Monday
1, Wednesday
February, 2006 28, Tuesday
25, Saturday
22, Wednesday
|
|