Desperate Iraqis face mass starvation, warns UN

Now, if you've been following the world press, rather than the co-opted U.S. major media, this should not come as news. If it's news to you, then great. A hint. In any war with Iraq, it won't be Saddam that suffers. And, given our overwhelming air superiority, the US and the coalition of the PAID shouldn't be under much mortal danger either. The common citizens of Iraq will suffer, and I mean suffer badly, should war break out. As has been shown in our lack of attention to post-war Afghanistan, I fear the Iraqis will fare no better off. On to the article.

By Nicolas Pelham in Baghdad

Published: February 28 2003 4:00 | Last Updated: February 28 2003 4:00

A war in Iraq could spark a humanitarian crisis on a scale far worse than the famine in the Horn of Africa or the war in Afghanistan, Ramiro Lopes da Silva, assistant UN secretary-general responsible for the UN's Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Iraq (UNOHCI), warned yesterday.


"If there is a conflict it will be the biggest challenge the humanitarian community has been confronted with," Mr da Silva said. "Bigger than the Horn of Africa, and much bigger than Afghanistan."

Mr da Silva said a conflict would force the UN to halt the oil-for-food programme, on which the UN estimates 60 per cent of Iraqis depend totally for sustenance. He said 10m Iraqis would require food assistance within six weeks of a conflict - or an even shorter time in the event of a mass population movement. "The six-week window [to mount a humanitarian response] can be narrower if we have a forced displacement of the population," he said.

Unlike Afghanistan, Iraqis were a "fragile, urbanised population" who had grown "extremely dependent on a [food distribution] service provided by the state". Without the supply of rations, mass starvation could follow.

The warnings come shortly after President Saddam Hussein made his first direct appeal to his people to prepare for war. He called on Iraqis to dig trenches in their gardens, and instructed police to find some safe havens for their families so their minds would not be distracted by their families in the hour of battle.

Two days after the speech, there was little sign of trench-digging. But small generators and kerosene lamps have been in demand, and neighbourhoods are combining funds to raise £30 for a borehole, the equivalent of a teacher's salary for six months.

Until now, Iraq has insisted that that it had distributed food rations four months in advance. But Mr da Silva said much had been bartered as Iraqis sought to raise funds for small generators and a reserve of fuel to run them.

Aid workers paint a similarly desperate picture, saying sanctions have forced Iraqis to sell their assets to an extent that they no longer have "coping mechanisms". "There is total exposure," says Care's Baghdad director, Margaret Hassan. "Your home is the last thing you sell, and Iraqis are selling now."

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