DUBAI: Doctors Without Borders said Tuesday that thousands of Iraqi civilians fleeing the besieged city of Fallujah have been without access to medicine for months and are fleeing to areas without adequate water and sanitation, raising the likelihood of epidemics like cholera.
The medical aid group, also known by its French acronym MSF, is assisting around 20,000 civilians from Fallujah who have fled to three main sites. The Daesh group seized the city more than two years ago.
The head of MSF’s mission in Iraq, Fabio Forgione, said families who have fled to camps are facing a lack of shelter and clean drinking water. A cholera outbreak last year infected some 2,800 people in Iraq. He said doctors are also treating people with conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes who haven’t had access to medications.
“We are extremely concerned about the situation in Fallujah. We are talking about a city which has been besieged now for months, where access to care, access to food, access to assistance has been extremely hampered,” Forgione said in Dubai.
MSF has deployed mobile health clinics near the front-lines to provide basic services to families who have been able to flee. Fallujah is located 65 km west of Baghdad.
The UN estimates about 50,000 civilians are trapped inside the city and that 42,000 people have fled Fallujah since a military operation to retake the city began in late May. Organizations such as MSF and The Norwegian Refugee Council say the number of those who’ve fled is closer to 30,000, lower than the UN estimate.
The conflict in Iraq has forced 3.3 million people to flee their homes. Iraq is also hosting between 250,000-300,000 refugees from neighboring Syria who need medical assistance and mental health care, Forgione said. “This is one of the worst humanitarian crises Iraq has been facing in the last 10 years,” he said.
Iraqis fleeing Fallujah lack shelter
Iraqis fleeing Fallujah lack shelter
UN rights chief shocked by ‘unbearable’ Darfur atrocities
- Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur
PORT SUDAN: Nearly three years of war have put the Sudanese people through “hell,” the UN’s rights chief said on Sunday, blasting the vast sums spent on advanced weaponry at the expense of humanitarian aid and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has left tens of thousands of people dead and around 11 million displaced.
Speaking in Port Sudan during his first wartime visit, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk said the population had endured “horror and hell,” calling it “despicable” that funds that “should be used to alleviate the suffering of the population” are instead spent on advanced weapons, particularly drones.
More than 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and two-thirds of Sudan’s population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.
In addition to the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, Sudan is also facing “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict, including through the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of children,” Turk added.
He said he had heard testimony of “unbearable” atrocities from survivors of attacks in Darfur, and warned of similar crimes unfolding in the Kordofan region — the current epicenter of the fighting.
Testimony of these atrocities must be heard by “the commanders of this conflict and those who are arming, funding and profiting from this war,” he said.
Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these horrific violations face justice regardless of the affiliation,” Turk said on Sunday, adding that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute “war crimes.”
He called on both sides to “cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters.”
Turk again warned on Sunday that crimes similar to those seen in El-Fasher could recur in volatile Kordofan, where the RSF has advanced, besieging and attacking several key cities.
Hundreds of thousands face starvation across the region, where more than 65,000 people have been displaced since October, according to the latest UN figures.
