BAGHDAD: The Iraqi government is seeking funds for the reconstruction of areas liberated from Daesh, Iraqi officials and lawmakers told Arab News on Wednesday.
Iraqi security forces, backed by the US-led coalition and Shiite-dominated paramilitary groups, have liberated more than 95 percent of areas formerly held by Daesh.
Iraqi Planning Minister Salman Jumaili, during a meeting with France’s trade minister in Baghdad on Wednesday, said Iraq needs $100 billion over 10 years from 2018 to rebuild affected areas.
The reconstruction plan is “aimed at achieving human, social and economic development, as well as the rehabilitation of infrastructure,” Jumaili said after the meeting.
“Iraq relies on the international community’s support to enable the government to implement its development programs, particularly with regard to reconstruction.”
In liberated areas, Baghdad seeks to maintain security, provide employment opportunities for youths, compensate citizens affected by terrorism or military operations, and build schools and hospitals, Iraqi officials told Arab News.
The EU on Wednesday offered a $71 million grant to finance reconstruction and mine clearance in Anbar, Salahuddin, Kirkuk, Nineveh and Diyala provinces, Iraq’s Planning Ministry said.
The US ambassador to Iraq, Douglas Silliman, on Tuesday said his country is working to secure a $115-million international grant to Iraq to finance the reconstruction of liberated areas.
Iraq is working to hold a conference for international donors in February, officials said.
A major challenge facing the Iraqi government is the return of 2.9 million internally displaced people, tens of thousands of whom are living in tents on the outskirts of cities, while others are spread across provinces.
Iraqi lawmakers have complained that the Cabinet has not allocated enough funds in the 2018 budget to bring displaced people back to their homes.
“The allocations offered by the government in the draft budget to bring displaced people back home, reconstruct their areas and maintain stability there aren’t enough,” Hussam Al-Eqabi, a member of the parliamentary finance committee, told Arab News. “We need to discuss details with the government, to amend the budget.”
Baghdad seeks funds to rebuild areas liberated from Daesh
Baghdad seeks funds to rebuild areas liberated from Daesh
Aid workers find little life in El-Fasher after RSF takeover
- First UN visit to the devastated Sudanese city finds traumatized civilians in ‘unsafe conditions’
PORT SUDAN: Traumatized civilians left in Sudan’s El-Fasher after its capture by paramilitary forces are living without water or sanitation in a city haunted by famine, UN aid coordinator Denise Brown said on Monday.
El-Fasher fell to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in October after more than 500 days of siege, and last Friday, a small UN humanitarian team was able to make its first short visit in almost two years.
Mass atrocities, including massacres, torture, and sexual violence, reportedly accompanied the capture of the city. Satellite pictures reviewed by AFP show what appear to be mass graves.
FASTFACT
From a humanitarian point of view, UN aid coordinator Denise Brown said, El-Fasher remains Sudan’s ‘epicenter of human suffering’ and the city — which once held more than a million people — is still facing a famine.
Brown described the city as a “crime scene,” but said human rights experts would carry out investigations while her office focuses on restoring aid to the survivors.
“We weren’t able to see any of the detainees, and we believe there are detainees,” she said.
From a humanitarian point of view, she said, El-Fasher remains Sudan’s “epicenter of human suffering” and the city — which once held more than a million people — is still facing a famine.
“El-Fasher is a ghost of its former self,” Brown said in an interview.
“We don’t have enough information yet to conclude how many people remain there, but we know large parts of the city are destroyed. The people who remain, their homes have been destroyed.”
“These people are living in very precarious situations,” warned Brown, a Canadian diplomat and the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Sudan.
“Some of them are in abandoned buildings. Some of them ... in very rudimentary conditions, plastic sheeting, no sanitation, no water. So these are very undignified, unsafe conditions for people.”
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the regular army and its former allies, the RSF, which has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe.
Brown said the team “negotiated hard with the RSF” to obtain access and managed to look around, visit a hard-pressed hospital, and some abandoned UN premises — but only for a few hours.
Their movements were also limited by fears of unexploded ordnance and mines left behind from nearly two years of fighting.
“There was one small market operating, mostly with produce that comes from surrounding areas, so tomatoes, onions, potatoes,” she said.
“Very small quantities, very small bags, which tells you that people can’t afford to buy more.”
“There is a declared famine in El-Fasher. We’ve been blocked from going in. There’s nothing positive about what’s happened in El-Fasher.
“It was a mission to test whether we could get our people safely in and out, to have a look at what remains of the town, who remains there, what their situation is,” she said.
The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people, driven 11 million from their homes, and caused what the UN has declared “the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.”
