-Caveat Lector- http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035777604474&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492&call_pagepath=News/News
Feb. 9, 2003. 01:00 AM `A humanitarian disaster' Agencies brace for refugees, disease, civilian casualties Aid officials say preparations have been minimal SANDRO CONTENTA LONDON.With a U.S.-led war against Iraq all but certain, international aid agencies are scrambling to prepare for the humanitarian catastrophe they fear is inevitable. Their plans are in stark contrast to the picture of a benign superpower painted by President George W. Bush in his Jan. 28 State of the Union address. Declaring the United States ready to "sacrifice for the liberty of strangers," Bush said his goals were to "bring to the Iraqi people food and medicines and supplies . and freedom." It may turn out to be tough medicine, indeed. The United Nations estimates the immediate consequences of war in Iraq will be hundreds of thousands of refugees, along with mass hunger, disease and civilian casualties. "It has all the makings of a humanitarian disaster," warns Gil Loescher, an expert on forced displacement and international security. The extent of the crisis will depend on how the war unfolds. U.N. emergency planners estimate that anywhere from 4.9 million to 9.6 million Iraqis will need some form of assistance, says Francis Mwanza, a spokesperson for the World Food Program. The Rome-based agency is moving stockpiles of food to countries that neighbour Iraq to feed 900,000 refugees for one month. Iran and Syria are preparing sites along their border with Iraq for refugees. But Jordan, which fears for its stability, insists its border will be closed to Iraqis fleeing war. Turkey, which saw hundreds of thousands of Kurds stream across its border after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, is determined to keep them out this time. Turkey has been setting up refugee camps inside northern Iraq, in an area kept out of Saddam Hussein's control by patrolling U.S. and British warplanes. Since the early 1990s, Saddam's army internally displaced more than 1 million Iraqis, largely Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south, in a bid to crush all opposition to his rule. The great unknown is whether the Iraqi president has biological or chemical weapons at the ready and whether he'll launch a scorched-earth policy once it becomes clear his days are numbered. Fuelling a humanitarian crisis might also help Saddam slow down an American-led invasion and increase international opposition to war, says Loescher, a senior fellow at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies and author of the recent book, The UNHCR And World Politics: A Perilous Path. "In the worst-case scenario, you might have contaminated people trying to flee across borders . and who will want them?" he says. "Humanitarian workers themselves probably will not be prepared or trained for such a scenario." But Iraqis are likely to pay the high price of a war even without Saddam's help, aid officials say. With the U.S. and Britain threatening to wage war without the backing of the U.N. Security Council and amassing more than 125,000 troops in the Persian Gulf region, military action could be launched as early as the end of this month. Nevertheless, preparations to deal with the potential humanitarian crisis have been minimal because, aid officials say, the U.N. hasn't wanted to send out the message that war is unavoidable. Privately, however, officials have been calculating the human cost of war. In December, a U.N. task force drafted a confidential report, Likely Humanitarian Scenarios, which was leaked last month and posted on the Web site of a British group opposed to the U.N. trade embargo against Iraq. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- `You might have contaminated people trying to flee across borders' Gil Loescher, international security expert -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The report argues that Iraq's civilian population is far more vulnerable to the humanitarian impact of military action than during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Back then, Iraq was an affluent country with modern hospitals and extensive infrastructure and Iraqis had cash and material assets that helped them cope with the crisis. But a 12-year international trade embargo has reduced the country and its people to a far more precarious state. Fully 60 per cent of the population . some 16 million people . is completely dependent on monthly food baskets available under the "Oil-for-Food" program, which allows Iraq to use oil money to buy U.N.-approved goods. Relying so heavily on the state for their food makes Iraqis more vulnerable to military conflict than the predominantly rural and self-reliant Afghan people were during the U.S.-led war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban 14 months ago, the report says. Almost 1 million Iraqi children under age 5 suffer from chronic malnutrition, according to a UNICEF survey last February. More than one in 10 children dies before reaching age 5 and seven out of 10 infant deaths are caused by diarrhea, respiratory infections linked to water pollution or malnutrition. Half of all sewage treatment plants don't work, one-third of the national power supply is still down and most of the water pumped into homes isn't treated. Nicholas Hughes, emergency preparedness consultant for Save the Children U.K., estimates Iraqi households have about six weeks' worth of food stockpiled, although many have recently started selling food for cash. "People don't want to be stuck with a lot of rations that they can't carry, because they know they might have to move quickly once the war starts," he says. Once the bombs fall, most international aid agencies will evacuate and food distribution under the Oil-for-Food program likely will grind to a halt, especially with bridges, roads, ports and power lines all likely to become military targets. "It is estimated that the nutritional status of some 3.03 million persons countrywide will be dire and that they will require therapeutic feeding," the U.N. report says. "This consists of 2.03 million severely and moderately malnourished children under 5 and 1 million pregnant and lactating women." Among the most vulnerable, the report says, are some 5,000 children in orphanages, detention centres and centres for the handicapped, 21,000 people in centres for the elderly and thousands more in hospitals. Citing estimates from the World Health Organization, the report says some 100,000 Iraqi civilians could be wounded in the fighting, but does not say how many may be killed. Another 400,000 Iraqis, it says, will be hit by disease from a lack of clean water once electricity is knocked out. After the Gulf War, the U.N. calculated that between 3,500 and 15,000 civilians died during the fighting, along with up to 120,000 Iraqi troops. Last month, the directors of British Overseas Aid Group . Oxfam, Save the Children, ActionAid, Catholic Agency For Overseas Development and Christian Aid . argued that war against Iraq contravened the Geneva Conventions because so many Iraqi civilians depend on basic infrastructure for their survival. In a letter published in the Financial Times, they cited Article 54 of Additional Protocol 1 as prohibiting attacks on "objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population." The Conventions further prohibit attacks against infrastructure, "which may be expected to leave the civilian population with such inadequate food or water as to cause its starvation or force its movement." Said the letter: "It is hard to see how a war could be waged without violating international humanitarian law and increasing suffering among the civilian population." <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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