Iraqis face
'immense' suffering
Car bombs: An
everyday reality now
The current security situation is disastrous, the Red Cross
says
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The International Committee of the
Red Cross says the situation for ordinary Iraqis is
getting steadily worse.
Four years after the US-led invasion,
the ICRC says the conflict is inflicting immense
suffering, and calls for greater protection of
civilians. An Iraqi woman quoted in the report
said people wanted help to collect bodies lining streets
every morning.
The ICRC still has a presence in Iraq
despite the bombing of its Baghdad offices three and a
half years ago.
In the report called Civilians Without
protection - The Ever-worsening Crisis in Iraq, the Red
Cross asked Iraqis what could be done to help them.
The answer was a shock, says ICRC
director of operations Pierre Kraehenbuehl. "The suffering that Iraqi men, women
and children are enduring today is unbearable and
unacceptable," he said.
"The ICRC calls on all those who can
influence the situation on the ground to act now to
ensure that the lives of ordinary people are spared and
protected. This is an obligation under international
humanitarian law for both states and non-state actors."
The famously neutral International Red
Cross will not blame anyone in particular for what it
calls the current disastrous security situation, says
the BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva. The report makes it clear that nobody
- including the Iraqi government and coalition forces -
has done enough so far, our correspondent adds.
'Simply unbearable'
Red Cross workers asked Iraqi women
about their lives.
"If there's anything that anybody
could do that would really help us today would be to
help us collect the bodies that line the streets in
front of our homes every morning and that we find nobody
dares to touch or remove after security reasons," one
woman said.
Women found it "simply unbearable" to
confront their children with them morning after morning
as they tried to take them to school, the woman added.
The Red Cross says every aspect of
life in Iraq is getting worse - a trip to the market has
become a matter of life and death.
"Once I was called to an explosion
site," Saad, a humanitarian worker, is quoted as saying
in the report.
I saw a four-year-old boy sitting
beside his mother's body, which had been
decapitated by the explosion. He was
talking to her, asking her what had
happened.
He had been taken out shopping by his
mum."
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The report also highlights the
following problems:
Iraq's healthcare facilities face critical
shortages of staff and supplies. Many doctors,
nurses and patients no longer dare to go to
hospitals and clinics because they are targeted or
threatened
much of Iraq's vital water, sewage and
electricity infrastructure is in a critical
condition
food shortages have been reported in some areas
and malnutrition is said to have increased
In a report also released on Wednesday, the charity
Oxfam said the UK's ability to be a force for good in
the world had been seriously damaged by the invasion of
Iraq and other foreign policy decisions.
And a report by the Oxford Research Group think tank
said UK and US policy towards Iraq had "spawned new
terror in the region".
BBC
