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Kirkuk Open Wounds
KIRKUK — With thousands of displaced families sheltered in camps and old government buildings with no access to food or clean water, the northern city of oil-rich Kirkuk mirrors the situation across Iraq five years after the US invasion.
"There are days I have to divide a bread with my other four brothers because my father doesn’t have money to buy more," said Amir Hussein, 13.
According to the Displaced Families Organization (DFO) at least 30 percent of Kirkuk population, displaced and non displaced, are living in poverty.
"People are starving and here in Kirkuk the violence that kills everyday Iraqis isn’t sectarian but a fight to get enough food to survive more one day of hungry," says spokesman Sheik Mahmoud Rahman.
"The rich-oil-city, despite emerging and supplying the Iraq government with one third of its oil production, became one of the poorest cities in Iraq after invasion."
The city has been flooded by thousands of people displaced by violence raging since the US invasion.
The UN Refugees Agency (UNHCR) estimates nearly 50,000 Iraqis, half of them women and children, were displaced in Kirkuk since 2003.
Most of the internally-displaced people (IDPs) are settled in dilapidated areas with no access to food, clean water and healthcare.
Maha Sidky, Associate Reporting Officer for UNHCR Iraq Operation in Amman, regretted that access to public distribution system (PDS) does not reach all displaced people.
"Thus, ration distribution is not accessible," she said.
"Some of the newly arrived IDPs in Kirkuk have a problem registering with the Ministry of Displacement and Migration and thus can not have the PDS cards transferred."
Silent Victims
The displaced are living in old government buildings or are camped on the outskirts of the city, some 255 kilometers north of the capital Baghdad.
The dilapidated health and sewage systems are adding insult to their injury.
"Since last year I got sick four times from different diseases and the doctor said it is because the bad water we have," said young Hussein.
"But mum says we have to drink not to get dehydrated and die from thirsty, even if it is contaminated."
Families have to dispute the few tanks of clean water distributed among camps and tolerate the bad smell of open drains and accumulated rubbishes.
More
According to the Displaced Families Organization (DFO) at least 30 percent of Kirkuk population, displaced and non displaced, are living in poverty.
"People are starving and here in Kirkuk the violence that kills everyday Iraqis isn’t sectarian but a fight to get enough food to survive more one day of hungry," says spokesman Sheik Mahmoud Rahman.
"The rich-oil-city, despite emerging and supplying the Iraq government with one third of its oil production, became one of the poorest cities in Iraq after invasion."
The city has been flooded by thousands of people displaced by violence raging since the US invasion.
The UN Refugees Agency (UNHCR) estimates nearly 50,000 Iraqis, half of them women and children, were displaced in Kirkuk since 2003.
Most of the internally-displaced people (IDPs) are settled in dilapidated areas with no access to food, clean water and healthcare.
Maha Sidky, Associate Reporting Officer for UNHCR Iraq Operation in Amman, regretted that access to public distribution system (PDS) does not reach all displaced people.
"Thus, ration distribution is not accessible," she said.
"Some of the newly arrived IDPs in Kirkuk have a problem registering with the Ministry of Displacement and Migration and thus can not have the PDS cards transferred."
Silent Victims
The displaced are living in old government buildings or are camped on the outskirts of the city, some 255 kilometers north of the capital Baghdad.
The dilapidated health and sewage systems are adding insult to their injury.
"Since last year I got sick four times from different diseases and the doctor said it is because the bad water we have," said young Hussein.
"But mum says we have to drink not to get dehydrated and die from thirsty, even if it is contaminated."
Families have to dispute the few tanks of clean water distributed among camps and tolerate the bad smell of open drains and accumulated rubbishes.
More
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