July 19- 31, 2005
The information in this digest is organized into 3 sections:

• Health Care
• Water
• and Electricity

Each section has news headlines and, when available, news articles. When there is enough information available, a summary is provided.

Health Care

Summary

Media reports indicate continuing shortages of medical supplies and equipment in Baghdad hospitals, as well as insufficient electricity and clean water. A recent survey by a Belgian health and human rights NGO, Medical Aid for the Third World, found that the health care system had deteriorated over the past year.

Urgent News

The 600-bed Sadr Teaching Hospital in Najaf city has remained closed since early April, when fighting broke out between US forces and militants loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The closure has strained health care services in the area. The US military has said that efforts were underway to reopen the hospital by September. The Iraqi Health Ministry is conducting an assessment on how to put to use US$27 million allocated for repairs. -July-15-04

USAID reports that training for 45 traditional birth attendants in 11 rural areas of Al Anbar, Diyala and Najaf governorates has been completed. Attendants also received medical supplies and equipment for their primary healthcare clinics. -July-15-04

Mercy Malaysia reports that it delivered 80 beds and mattresses to the Ibn al-Quff Hospital in Baghdad last month (June 19). The delivery was valued at more than US$87,700. July-12-04

Articles

Iraqi hospital deputy director killed
Tuesday 27 July 2004

A senior hospital official at Mahmudiya hospital south of Baghdad has been assassinated, an Iraqi Health Ministry spokesman has said. The spokesman said Qasim Muhammad al-Ubadi, assistant director of the hospital, died in a “terrorist act” late on Monday but did not give details of how he was killed.

Fighters who oppose the US installed interim Iraqi government have killed several senior officials in recent months by shooting or bombs, accusing them of collaborating with US occupation forces.

snip (the rest of this article isn’t about the assassination).

WATER

Summary

According to the BBC, Iraq is facing an environmental crisis. Hospitals continue to be confronted with large numbers of patients who are afflicted with water-borne illnesses. More than half the children at a pediatric hospital in Baghdad are being treated for water-borne diseases. “Things haven’t got better since the war. We still have no water and no sewage system. There are lots of people in my area whose children are falling ill” (Baghdad mother whose daughter is hospitalized).

Much of Baghdad’s untreated waste pours into the Tigris River, from which millions of Iraqis get their drinking water. The sewage treatment plants are not only suffering from the damage of previous wars and economic sanctions, they were also looted after the recent US invasion. Some repairs have begun, but progress is slow at best, owing at least partly to security problems which are keeping American contractors away from the work they have been hired to oversee.

In the south of Iraq, a UN survey found that most of the 85,000 people living in the Marsh Arabs’ ancient homeland were “collecting water directly from the marshlands, that many settlements lacked basic sanitation and that waterborne diseases were commonplace.” Efforts being made to begin restoring the marshes recognize the urgent need for water treatment. A UN project, funded by Japan, seeks to build small water treatment facilities for about a dozen settlements.

Urgent News

Insufficient water supply in Basrah has been exacerbated by the fall in availability of electricity. About 40% of Basrah city’s population is unable to access piped water due to poor infrastructure. -June-17-04 UNICEF is trucking in more than 800,000 liters (211,400 gallons) of water per day for residents of Basrah. -June-17-04

Articles

Health fears grow in polluted Iraq
By Caroline Hawley
BBC correspondent in Baghdad

It’s not just the violence in Iraq that is keeping doctors busy. The country is facing an environmental crisis. One of the main problems is waste water pouring out of Baghdad’s main sewage plants. Iraq’s ancient sewage system collapsed during the war and insecurity is hampering efforts to repair it.

Not a drop has been treated yet at the Rustumiya works, which was damaged during the war and then looted. Much of Baghdad’s untreated waste, the sewage of more than two-and-a-half million people, is now flowing straight into the River Tigris. The mighty river has sustained civilisation in Iraq for more than 7,000 years. The water is meant to give life, but now it is a source of disease.

Crumbling infrastructure

Repairs are under way, but they are way behind schedule. Iraqis are doing the hard labour here. American contractors, who used to come every day, now only show up once a week because of security concerns. Even before the war, the country’s infrastructure was crumbling because of sanctions and neglect and misrule. Then, in the chaos that followed the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the looters stripped away essential fittings.

Untreated sewage is being directed straight into the river

Getting clean water to her people is now the main priority of Iraq’s first-ever environment minister. Mishkat al-Moumin says decades of wars, added to the effect of sanctions, have given Iraq one of the world’s most polluted environments.

Coping with th e crisis is, for her, a daunting challenge. “We do have lack of equipment, we do have lack of experience, we do operate in very difficult circumstances,” she says. “Imagine yourself that somebody throws you into the sea, asking you to swim when you don’t know how to swim and you don’t have any equipment - what will you do? This is the situation here.”

Spreading disease

And so, behind the bombs and the bullets that have claimed so many Iraqi lives, another quieter tragedy is unfolding and taking its own terrible toll. At a local paediatric hospital, a doctor checks up on two-year-old Fatima Nasser, who has been sick with diarrhoea for two months and is now badly malnourished. The child, who recently learnt to walk and talk, can now only cry or lie listlessly in her hospital bed and the likely culprit is dirty water.

The family has no running water. Her mother says they buy it in by tank, but do not know what the source is. “Things haven’t got better since the war,” she says. “We still have no water and no sewage system. There are lots of people in my area whose children are falling ill.”

More than half the children now being treated at the hospital have water-borne diseases. The doctors say they can only treat the symptoms of the real problem - the state of Iraq’s infrastructure.

Marsh Arabs’ ancient homeland to be restored to former glory
By Kim Gamel and David Randall
25 July 2004

The marshlands of southern Iraq, long regarded as one of the nurturing grounds of civilisation but turned into an arid salt bed under the regime of Saddam Hussein, are to be restored by the United Nations.

Saddam drained much of the Mesopotamian waters between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers - home of the celebrated Marsh Arabs - by building dams, dikes and canals after the inhabitants supported a Shia Muslim rebellion following the 1991 Gulf war. The reed beds were also burned and the waters poisoned.

As a result, more than 500,000 people were displaced. By 2001, satellite images showed that 90 per cent of the original wetlands had been lost, and experts feared they could disappear altogether by 2008.

The largest wetland ecosystem in the Middle East, the marshes have enormous cultural significance. They have been identified as the site of the Garden of Eden and the Great Flood, and the birthplace of Abraham. Nearby lie an array of world-famous archaeological sites including Ur.

The marshes were home to an enormous range of wildlife. They were also vital to the fisheries of the Persian Gulf, filtering polluted water from northern cities and purifying it before it reached the southern rivers and the city of Basra. It is now feared that up to 66 species of bird, including the sacred ibis and African darter, are now at risk, as are numbers of migrants such as the dalmatian pelican, pygmy cormorant and white-tailed eagle. A sub-species of otter and the bandicoot rat are believed to have become extinct.

Iraqi engineers and tribes began reflooding part of the wetlands by cutting gashes in dikes in the euphoria of Saddam’s removal. Satellite images indicate about a fifth of the area had been reflooded, the UN Environment Program said. However, experts say reflooding the marshes will need painstaking engineering if the balance of salt and plant life is to be restored.

“The challenge now is to restore the environment and provide clean water and sanitation services for up to 85,000 people living there,” the UNEP said. A UN survey found that most Iraqis in the region were collecting water directly from the marshlands, that many settlements lacked basic sanitation and that waterborne diseases were commonplace.

The UN project, funded by Japan to the tune of �6m, will also aim to provide clean drinking water and sanitation, and will initially target about a dozen settlements for small water treatment systems. Reed beds and other habitats that act as natural water filtration systems will also be restored. Klaus Toepfer, UNEP’s executive director, said: “Half the world’s wetlands have been lost in the past 100 years. I am sure that the lessons learnt during this project will provide important clues on how to resuscitate other lost and degraded wetlands elsewhere on the globe.”

Electricity

Summary
18 months after the violent overthrow of the Iraqi regime, Baghdad and Basrah continue to experience massive electricity shortages. According to the Electricity Minister, Aiham Alsammarae, “We can produce 5,200 megawatt hours now, but to keep everyone happy, we need to produce 7,500.” Currently in Baghdad, the electricity is shut off 5-6 times a day, under a government rationing system. As of a month ago, in Basrah, electricity was available only 6-8 hrs/day; at that time, the expectation was for an even greater reduction in power as the heat of the summer peaked.

“We take showers, we keep the doors shut, we fill empty bottles to drink, but after 10 minutes, we are hot again and the food starts to spoil,” said Laila Rassool, 41, a mother of five. “Without electricity, life is nothing. We have our own government now, but they are doing nothing to help the people.”

Urgent News

According to reports, electricity in Basrah city and its surrounding area is available 6-8 hours per day, with longer blackouts expected in the summer as availability falling to as little as 3 hours per day. -June-17-04

Articles

In Iraqi Homes, A Constant Battle Just to Stay Cool
Energy Rationing Prompts Rudimentary Alternatives
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, July 28, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD, July 27 — In the oppressive swelter of the Iraqi summer, where temperatures reach 110 degrees by morning rush hour, life in thousands of run-down apartments and shops in this once-modern capital revolves around a primitive routine for heat survival.

This is the second summer since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and people here widely expected power to be restored by now. Instead, the city’s electricity shuts off four or five times a day under a government energy-rationing scheme while officials struggle to revive a power system ravaged by war, vandalism and years of neglect.

When the lights die and the air stops moving, Thakaa Abrar, 45, picks up a newspaper and begins fanning her husband, a customs worker bedridden by a stroke. Her refrigerator is almost empty, a precaution against spoilage, and she will buy only enough food to cook for supper.

Her daughter Duniya, 21, fills dozens of soft drink bottles with water, ready to pour into an ancient cooler that pushes air through a filter of wet wood shavings. Even at night, someone must get up every 15 minutes to empty another bottle into the contraption.

“This is no way for a family to live. We are tired. Everyone is tired, because it is impossible to sleep,” said Abrar, offering visitors a tray of warm soft drinks in her cramped apartment. “We could never afford to buy a generator. When the pipes break, I have to beg for water in the shops. And with all this terrorism, I can’t even let my daughters go out for ice cream.”

Even in a place accustomed to stultifying summers, the heat seems especially rankling to Baghdad residents this season. In the streets, where traffic is perpetually jammed and many cars are without air conditioning, tempers and radiators frequently boil over in the long lines at checkpoints set up by U.S. Army patrols and Iraqi police.

In the shops, merchants depend on daily supplies of ice blocks, produced round-the-clock in local factories and delivered early in the morning on dripping flatbed trucks or wooden handcarts. The price of ice, once about 25 cents a block, has shot up since most factories had to purchase large generators last year to keep up production; now a single block can cost $2 retail on delivery.

“The power cutoffs are a continuous problem, but we can’t stop production because people need ice so badly,” said Ayad Alfred Lassow, 47, whose grandfather founded the Crystal Ice Factory in the 1960s. “Cement factories use crushed ice to keep the machines cool; fish sellers use blocks of it to keep the fish fresh. I think it will be years before the electricity is normal and people can use refrigerators.”

Under Lassow’s watchful eye Monday morning, row after row of 12-pound ice blocks inside metal tubes were mechanically lifted from a giant, open-air refrigeration tank, turned upside down and dropped into a huge metal tray, where perspiring workers lifted them into waiting delivery trucks.

Last summer, the intense heat contributed to outbreaks of street violence in several cities. Angry mobs clashed with foreign troops, blaming the occupation forces for failing to restore power and asserting that after the Persian Gulf War in 1991, Saddam Hussein’s government had the electricity working again within weeks.

This time, with temperatures reaching 117 degrees and expected to climb, public frustration has turned against the new Iraqi government, which has begun rationing electricity in an effort to balance the limited power supply among urban and provincial users.

Iraqi officials said this week that they had made considerable progress in rebuilding damaged power plants and transmission lines but that they continue to encounter vandalism and illegal power diversion. They said that only one gas turbine in Baghdad was in operation and that construction of a second one had been suspended because of terrorist threats.

“We are trying to be fair, and we are doing much better than last year,” Electricity Minister Aiham Alsammarae said in an interview. “Our lines can carry the bulk of power with no problem, but the plants are old and poorly maintained, and the terrorists keep hitting us. We can produce 5,200 megawatt hours now, but to keep everyone happy, we need to produce 7,500.”

Alsammarae noted that most electricity was being provided free, because it has not been safe to monitor use or collect fees. He also said many poorer consumers had stolen power with hand-rigged cables, while many wealthier ones had purchased air conditioners and run them at full blast, putting a heavy drain on the system.

“People say we have democracy now, and they are free to do whatever they want, so they turn on every light and every air conditioner to the max,” he said. “We are trying an experiment in certain districts, saying that if they cut down on electricity use, we will restore power there 24 hours a day. We’ll have to see how they respond.”

Since the summer began, Baghdad has been flooded with imported air conditioners and coolers, which are stacked high in boxes along sidewalks in many commercial areas. Most popular are the compact blue-and-white air coolers from Iran, which cost about $125 and can run on small generators.

But the import boom has nearly killed Iraq’s state-subsidized cooler industry, which once produced tens of thousands of simple but sturdy contraptions a year. This week, the main Hilal Industries cooler factory stood nearly silent, with stacks of unsold machines and piles of fresh wood shavings lying untouched.

“Last summer, we sold 28,000 coolers. This summer, we have only sold 12,000,” said Ali Shaker Ali, a manager at Hilal Industries. Under Hussein’s rule, he recalled, “we had a lot of demand, and the government protected us. Now the borders are open, people are buying generators, and no one is buying from us anymore.”

For many urban families, however, the coming of summer means simply having to endure. In one run-down apartment building this week, several neighbors gathered to commiserate. On each balcony was an old Iraqi-made cooler, but the power had been off for five hours and the rooms were stifling. One woman, a baker, was flushed pink from the heat of her oven. Another, a tailor, said she could operate her machine only a few hours each day.

“We take showers, we keep the doors shut, we fill empty bottles to drink, but after 10 minutes, we are hot again and the food starts to spoil,” said Laila Rassool, 41, a mother of five. “Without electricity, life is nothing. We have our own government now, but they are doing nothing to help the people.”

Across town, in a more modern building, a family was watching television Friday when the power cut off. A teenage boy rose from the couch, flipped on a generator switch, and the cartoons flickered back to life. His uncle said he thought people complained too much about minor postwar problems such as lack of electricity.

“At least we have freedom now,” said Haider Jawad, 40, an electrician. “My brother was executed by Saddam in 1983, and when I bought a satellite receiver in 2000, I was always terrified of a knock on the door” because such devices were illegal.

“People should be patient and give the government time to work on these problems,” he said. “Compared to the past, a little hot weather is nothing.”