Humanitarian tragedy in Iraq. Civilians are the principal victims of the war, with over 8 mln people in need of humanitarian assistance and 3 mln internally displaced persons, of which 1 million children. Iraq is facing one of the worst humanitarian crisis of all time.
The humanitarian situation
The report of the United Nations on the Protection of Civilian in Armed Conflictspointed out that, in almost two years of war against Da’esh, in Iraq, almost 19.000 civilians died, of which 3500 Yazidi women and children enslaved, child soldiers killed while fleeing the fightings, over 3 millions of displaced persons, of which 1 million children, as well as sweeps of Yazidi and Christian minorities. It confirmed that the price of the war is paid mainly by civilians, both at the hands of jihadists and governmental troops and their allies.
According to the UN, the data is under estimated and – similarly to the view of member states in the Iraqi territory, including Italy – it denounced the atrocities and the violations of humanitarian law by both Da’esh and the Baghdad’s Army allied militias; moreover, the risk of a humanitarian crisis might worsen due to the successful offensive of the Iraqi Army against Da’esh in Ramadi and the next possible offensives, as Falluja and Mosul, geostrategic crossroads of the country and, more generally, of the Middle East, with an estimated 1,5 million residents.
In the areas still controlled by it, Da’esh commits serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights. Therein, the systematic killing of civilians, including women and children, abductions, rapes, and subjugation of women and children as sexual slaves, the recruitment of child soldiers, mostly taken from their houses and carried to recruitment camps in neighboring territories of Syria; the continuous devastation of places of worship and of relevant cultural sites, like the monastery of St Elijah in Mosul, one of the oldest Christian monuments in Iraq.
There have been – and still are – atrocities and war crimes committed by Da’esh against the Iraqi Army. One of the most dramatic eventssince the beginning of the conflict in 2014 occurred last year, and its implications have not yet completely emerged. It is the massacre of Camp Speicher, near Tikrit, where only 12 people survived: it was perpetrated in June 2014when 1700 Iraqi soldiers, mostly Shiites, were captured by jihadist terrorists and carried toa place with recently duggraves, and where most of them were killed while the rest was beheaded and thrown in the Tigris. Last but not least, at the beginning of 2016, there was an attack to the Jawaher shopping center, in the heart of Baghdad, in an area populated by a Shiite majority, where 67 people died and at least 200 were wounded while, and at the same time, another attack took place in a bar in Muqdadiyah, 100 km north-east of Baghdad, which provoked the death of at least 20 people and decades wounded.
The international community, the international humanitarian organizations and the nongovernmental organizations are joining their effort in order to assist the Iraqi government in the hard task of dealing with the crisis.
Italy is at the forefront in the effort to alleviate the difficult humanitarian situation in Iraq: two years ago, it has been set up a humanitarian emergency bridge through six military flights which delivered food and first-aid kits, following the first wave of displaced persons in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation totally allocated over Euro 3 million (1.4 million of new aid programswere allocated at the end of 2015 and will be activated in spring) to tackle the humanitarian emergency which affects the Iraqi Kurdistan, partially already used thanks to the work of Italian NGO’s operating in this area. The main sectors on which the intervention is focused are education and health.
Besides the bilateral channel, Italy finances the UN agencies which operate in the country. Among the various multilateral funding, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation has recently allocated Euro 500.000 to UNICEF for a program on the assistance and the psycho-social support of girls who are victims of violence and belong to religious minorities: Euro 500.000 to UNHCR to promote the reconstruction of a refugees camp in Kurdistan; Euro 300.000 to UNESCO for a program on theprotection of cultural and archeological heritage under the control of Da’esh; Euro 1,000,000 to WFP to alleviate the conditions of the refugees in the autonomous region of Kurdistan.
Already last spring, the United Nations raised an alerton the difficulties to maintain all the existing aid programs without an adequate financial effort from the UN member states. While the total number of displaced persons is increasing, from July 2015 around 80% of emergency clinics managed by the UN and World Health Organization in Iraq have ceased to be operational, for lack of funds. At the end of January 2016, the Vice Representative of Secretary-General in the Country, Lise Grande (appointed to coordinate the action of Humanitarian Agencies), quantified therequest of funds to Member States for the humanitarian response in Iraq as of $ 800 mln. And she underlined that every single dollaris strictly needed.
