When ICRC officials talk of the “unbearable and unacceptable” suffering endured by Iraqi civilians, you can therefore be sure that each word has been carefully weighed before being uttered publicly. The situation the ICRC outlines in its latest report is a “conflict that spares no one” and ignores the most basic principles of humanitarian law. One humanitarian worker describes seeing a bewildered 4-year-old child talking to his mother’s head, torn off by an explosion, asking her what has happened.
Malnutrition is on the rise; health facilities are over-stretched; medical professionals, who should be protected while carrying their duty, are often targeted and are therefore fleeing the country. Power shortages, already severe, are growing worse. Humanitarian law is in theory binding for both state and non-state actors, but in reality civilians end up being caught in the cross-fire between insurgents and occupation troops.
The military operations currently under way, the so-called “surge,” are adding new detainees to the tens of thousands that have already been arrested. In 2006 the ICRC visited 32,000 detainees. In many cases the families are not aware of the arrests and remain without news of their relatives for months. Many households, now headed by women, are struggling to survive.
Displaced civilians currently present the most acute challenge and their fate will probably be a lasting legacy of this brutal conflict. The ICRC can only help a fraction of the estimated 1.7 million people displaced within the country. If the current level of violence continues, by the end of this year, this figure could swell to 2.7 million. Most of the internally displaced, often women, children and the elderly, are staying with host families whose own limited resources are increasingly stretched.
The impact of the war is not just felt within the country. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees recently appealed for $60 million in emergency assistance for 2 million Iraqis who are already living outside their native land -- a paltry amount compared to over $100 billion in additional funding for the war on terror that the US Congress and the Bush administration are currently debating.
According to the most recent figures, close to 1 million Iraqis live in Syria, some 700,000 in Jordan, 20,000 to 40,000 in Egypt and up to 40,000 in Lebanon. Although asylum requests in the West have dropped steadily in recent years, applications by Iraqis have nearly doubled between 2005 and 2006 to reach 22,200. In short a substantial proportion -- one in eight -- of Iraq’s 26 million citizens has been forced out of their homes by the conflict. And, if the figures published last year by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health are correct, some 650,000 Iraqis have also lost their lives between 2003 and 2006.
Western media continue to focus on the war between allied troops and insurgents. But the real struggle, these days, is the one fought daily by ordinary Iraqis in order to survive.
