May 9th, 2008 6:03 pm
Aid officials urge relief for Baghdad slum

By Tim Cocks and Waleed Ibrahim / Reuters

BAGHDAD - Civilians caught up in fighting between security forces and Shi'ite militiamen in a Baghdad slum are running out of food, water and medicine and relief agencies are unable to bring in supplies, officials said on Thursday. ADVERTISEMENT

But aid officials and an Iraqi government spokesman denied reports there had been a mass displacement of residents from Sadr City, home to 2 million people and the stronghold of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia.

They said it was too dangerous to get aid into the district in eastern Baghdad, where weeks of clashes have killed hundreds of people. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, seeking to impose law and order, launched a crackdown on militias in late March.

Dana Graber Ladek, a displacement specialist on Iraq at the U.N. International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Amman, said around 500 families had fled when U.S. and Iraqi operations against militiamen began.

"Since then, very few Iraqis have been able to leave due to curfews and ... insecurity," Ladek said by telephone.

"We need that corridor open to allow aid in, by U.S. and Iraqi forces ... by everyone involved in the conflict."

Ladek said relief was need urgently. Public distribution of food rations had stopped while prices of basic food items were rising.

Water and medical services were also falling short in the affected areas, especially since a U.S. missile strike near a Sadr City hospital on Saturday damaged a number of ambulances.

"Much ... depends on how long this (conflict) goes on for ... If it goes on for very long ... we risk some more serious consequences like an epidemic of cholera or malnutrition."

Maliki's crackdown was initially launched in the southern Shi'ite city of Basra, where the Mehdi Army put up stiff resistance for a week until Sadr ordered his fighters off the street. But fighting has continued in Baghdad's Sadr City.

Tahseen al-Sheikhli, the government's civilian spokesman for security operations in Baghdad, accused gunmen of attacking convoys trying to bring aid in.

"Who is responsible for the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Sadr City? Isn't it the armed groups?" he said.

"We have done our best to let food aid reach affected families but they are in areas of fighting and we can't even send forces to secure them because militants will attack us."

Saeed Haqi, head of the Iraqi Red Crescent, said fewer than 1,000 families had fled Sadr City since the operations began, adding that most of those had gone to stay with relatives.

LOUDSPEAKER WARNING?

Some residents said Iraqi security forces had used loudspeakers urging people to leave their homes -- perhaps signaling a major offensive was imminent -- but Sheikhli and a spokesman from Sadr's office in the slum denied this.

Iraqi security officials gave conflicting accounts of whether loudspeakers had been used to warn people to flee while the U.S. military said it had no information on the reports.

Maliki, himself a Shi'ite, says the crackdown is to disarm militias, but Sadr's followers sees it as an attempt to sideline the cleric's mass movement before local elections in October.

The prime minister caught his American backers off-guard with his offensive in Basra, but after early military setbacks, it has gone well. Political leaders across Iraq's sectarian and ethnic divide -- apart from the Sadrists, who control 10 percent of seats in parliament -- have backed Maliki's campaign.

Sadr last month threatened to formally scrap a ceasefire he imposed on the Mehdi Army last August. But then a couple of weeks later he urged his followers to observe the truce, leaving many guessing about his true intentions.

Sadr, in his 30s, is a fervent nationalist who has a zealous following among young and dispossessed Shi'ites.

(Additional reporting by Aseel Kami, Khalid al-Ansary and Wisam Mohammed; writing by Tim Cocks and Dean Yates, editing by Ralph Boulton)

May 9th, 2008 4:44 pm
IRAQ: Running Out of Water in Rising Heat

By Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail* / IPS

BAQUBA, May 9 - Water supply is drying out in what was once the agriculturally rich Diyala province north of Baghdad. Baquba, the capital city of Diyala, is now running out of water both for drinking and for irrigation.

Water supply has been hit by power failures. The central pumping station has been running short of electricity supply over the last two years.

The pumping station is located between two districts in conflict -- Hwaider, which is predominantly Shia, and Jupenat, mostly Sunni. For two years now, fighting between Sunnis and Shias here has led to reduced water supply.

"The Diyala river passes by the two villages before the pumping station," resident Zuhair Mahmood told IPS. "They try to change its stream to deprive the other of water for irrigating their farms. The diversions mean relatively little water can reach the station."

Often, Mahmood added, "farmers irrigate their farms by setting up pumps on the banks of the river, which further contributes to reduced supply to the station."

Some farmers have demanded that the pumping station be supplied directly from the Diyala river upstream of the conflict area.

"But this suggestion was rejected because people know that the Diyala river carries the bodies of those killed in the sectarian fighting," said Abdul-Qadir Omran, a now unemployed trader. "It is not good for drinking, and psychologically it is unacceptable."

People of Baquba are used to seeing bodies floating by in the Diyala river, and have long since ceased to use water from the river or fish in it.

Rising summer temperatures have made these problems worse. Many families like to use air coolers that rely heavily on water. Without some cooling it is difficult to sleep through the heat.

"Air coolers can be operated by simple generators, while air conditioners need high electricity, and there is a problem with the electricity," Nasir Jacob, an employee with the Diyala province water authority told IPS. "People prefer to use all available water for cooling, more than even for a bath; forget washing cars or watering our gardens."

"With the tremendous need for water in summer, pumping may not be sufficient for all residents," Mohammed Abid, father of a large family, told IPS. "Many families spend whole nights waiting for piped water in order to fill their holding tank."

Some have dug their own wells but this brings its own problems, an engineer at the directorate-general of water for the city told IPS on condition of anonymity.

"Water from these wells may be mixed with sewage water," he said. "Our towns and villages have no sewage networks, and even if they exist, they are not systematic." Locally discharged sewage often seeps into the water reserves below.

In the face of the water shortage, many farms and orchards are now desolate, and their owners jobless. Iraq now has to import food and vegetables, adding to the difficulties of local farmers.

According to an Oxfam report released last July, 70 percent of Iraqis do not have access to safe drinking water.

Inevitably, people ask why the occupation forces have not cared to ensure water and electricity supply. Just as inevitably, they get no answers.

(*Ahmed, our correspondent in Iraq's Diyala province, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who has reported extensively from Iraq and the Middle East.)

May 9th, 2008 4:29 pm
Iraqi military orders Sadr City residents to evacuate

By Leila Fadel / McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces, after more than 40 days of intense fighting, on Thursday told residents to evacuate their homes in the northeast Shiite slum of Sadr City and to move to temporary shelters on two soccer fields.

The military's call indicated the possibility of stepped-up military operations and came as Iraqi security forces raided a radio station run by backers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr. In the southern port city of Basra, militants launched rockets that struck a coalition base, killing two contractors and injuring four civilians and four coalition soldiers.

Sadr City has been a battleground since late March, enduring U.S. airstrikes, militia snipers and gunbattles between U.S. and Iraqi forces and the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to Sadr.

Already some 8,500 people have been displaced from the sprawling slum of some 2.5 million people, according to the Iraqi Red Crescent. For weeks, food, water and medical shortages have affected about 150,000 people, aid agencies said.

Two soccer fields in east and northeast Baghdad are expected to receive some 16,000 evacuees from the southeast portion of the city where the fighting has been most intense.

Col. Abdul Amir Risna Sigar, the director of sports facilities in Baghdad, said his organization would set up 500 tents around the two fields but are waiting for final orders. The Iraqi Red Crescent was stockpiling food, medical supplies and tents after being informed of the evacuation. It will be responsible for setting up the shelter and living areas for evacuees, the general director, Mazen Saloum, said.

Right now the fields are empty, and families have not come.

Um Mohammed, 48, ignored the Iraqi soldiers calling over loudspeakers for residents to leave their homes on Thursday. Earlier this week the Iraqi army dropped fliers around her home that asked residents to turn over Mahdi Army militiamen and cooperate with the government.

"The residents here are laughing at the government," she said. "Their demands are very strange. Either hand over our sons or leave our houses to live in small tents."

Um Mohammed will stay in her home, she said, even though her neighborhood is beset by gunbattles and sporadic airstrikes.

"We refuse to leave," she said. "Our death will be inside our homes."

In most of Sadr City, people haven't had food rations for more than a month and a half, and the Red Crescent has distributed thousands of food packs, 100 tons of flour and supplied four tons of medical supplies to the two main hospitals. Five hundred to 1,000 people have been killed in more than 40 days of fighting.

The U.S. military also distributed aid and treated citizens for medical conditions as troops continued their battle on the edges of Sadr City.

The U.S. military is putting up barriers to isolate the southern portion of the city, about 2 square miles, where they believe militants are launching rockets into the heavily fortified Green Zone, where Iraqi government offices and the U.S. diplomatic mission are housed. They expect the project to be complete in less than two weeks. The walls will isolate about 800,000 people in the sprawling slum from the rest of the district to stem the flow of rockets and weapons, said Col. Allen Batschelet, the chief of staff of the U.S. military Baghdad command.

"We're putting a series of these barriers that allows us to control access," he said. "Is it disruptive? You bet. Does it slow down commerce? No doubt. But right now that's the cost of reducing the illegal flow of weapons and arms that were getting in there previously."

On Wednesday, Iraqi security forces raided and stopped the broadcast of the Sadrist Al Ahad radio station, radio employees said.

"The army told the manager that the radio station is considered to provoke terrorism," said Akhbal Hameed, a 38-year-old radio employee. "The Iraqi forces blocked, raided and evacuated the building."

Iraqi officials said they didn't shut down the station and only conducted a raid.

(Special correspondents Laith Hammoudi and Jenan Hussein contributed.)