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IRAQ today<br />
Spirited Away<br />
As ISIS fighters rampage across northern Syria and Iraq, a group of priests are<br />
racing against time to save what’s left of the region’s Christian heritage. Dominican<br />
Order priests have managed to get many precious artifacts and manuscripts,<br />
seen in this truckload of boxes, safely to Erbil in Kurdistan.<br />
As winter approaches,<br />
concerns grow for refugees<br />
The grave humanitarian crisis<br />
in Iraq will become “a deadly<br />
life-threatening situation”<br />
if shelter isn’t found for more than<br />
160,000 people in Kurdistan before<br />
winter weather arrives, a senior U.N.<br />
official warned on October 7.<br />
Kevin Kennedy, the deputy humanitarian<br />
coordinator in Iraq, also<br />
told a news conference by video link<br />
from the Kurdish capital Erbil that<br />
getting aid to some 500,000 people<br />
in need of support in Anbar province,<br />
where the Islamic State terrorist<br />
group continues to capture territory,<br />
is very difficult.<br />
In September, the U.N. World<br />
Food Program was able to feed<br />
100,000 people in Anbar in a very<br />
challenging operation, and “if we’re<br />
not able to get sufficient assistance<br />
there the people will suffer, no question,”<br />
as temperatures start plummeting,<br />
Kennedy said.<br />
Iraq is one of four top-level humanitarian<br />
crises the United Nations<br />
is trying to tackle, with 1.8 million<br />
people fleeing their homes since December<br />
and fears of thousands more<br />
trying to escape the ongoing conflict.<br />
The three other major crises are in<br />
Syria, South Sudan and Central African<br />
Republic.<br />
Kennedy said nearly $300 million<br />
is needed in the very near future for<br />
winterized tents, which cost between<br />
$6,000 and $8,000 apiece, as well<br />
as kerosene for heating and winter<br />
clothes and boots for tens of thousands<br />
of people who fled the fighting<br />
with only the clothes on their backs,<br />
many in flip-flops.<br />
While much attention is currently<br />
focused on the terrorists’ takeover of a<br />
large swath of Iraqi territory, Kennedy<br />
said, “We believe the humanitarian<br />
situation which is the other side of the<br />
coin deserves equal consideration.”<br />
People who escaped the fighting<br />
are “very traumatized” at what they<br />
have seen and the people they left<br />
behind, “so it’s more than a crisis<br />
of needs and shelter and food and<br />
health ... it’s a crisis of spirit and a<br />
crisis of hope here,” Kennedy said.<br />
He said the three most important<br />
humanitarian challenges are access<br />
to areas not under government control,<br />
finding shelter for all those displaced,<br />
and the onset of winter.<br />
There are 860,000 internally displaced<br />
people, or IDPs, in Kurdistan<br />
and the U.N. estimates 390,000 need<br />
shelter, Kennedy said.<br />
Many are currently in schools,<br />
under bridges or out in the open living<br />
in very bad conditions, he said.<br />
The U.N. has completed and is<br />
building camps that will accommodate<br />
about 224,000 people, but that<br />
leaves a gap of about 166,000 people<br />
still needing shelter, and that gap has<br />
to be closed in the next five to six<br />
weeks, Kennedy said.<br />
“Our fear is unless we can provide<br />
the shelter and also the items to<br />
help people live through the winter,<br />
what is currently a very difficult and<br />
grave United Nations humanitarian<br />
challenge will transform itself into a<br />
deadly life-threatening situation for<br />
many of the IDPS,” he said.<br />
Observers.France24.com. Reprinted<br />
with permission of the Assyrian<br />
International News Agency, aina.org.<br />
32 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>NOVEMBER</strong> <strong>2014</strong>
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