[WCUSP] Shortage of safe water risks cholera in Iraq -U.N.

[Kate Zaidan]

Shortage of safe water risks cholera in Iraq -U.N.
Thu Mar 22 18:35:13 UTC 2007


By Suleiman al-Khalidi

AMMAN, March 22 (Reuters) - United Nations agencies working in Iraq 
warned on Thursday a chronic shortage of safe drinking water risks 
causing more child deaths and an outbreak of waterborne disease such as 
cholera during the summer.

Four years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, millions of 
Iraqi children still find that safe water is no easier to access, said a 
statement issued by leading U.N. aid agencies operating in Iraq.

The agencies, whose offices are based in Amman, issued the statement to 
mark World Water Day.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said shortages of drinking 
water threatened to push up diarrhoea rates, particularly among 
children. Diarrhoea is already the second highest cause of child illness 
and death in Iraq, it said.

"Latest reports suggest we are already seeing an increase in diarrhoea, 
even before the usual onset of the diarrhoea season in June," said Roger 
Wright, UNICEF representative in Iraq.

Efforts to repair Iraq's damaged water networks have been hampered by 
electricity shortages, attacks on technicians, infrastructure and 
engineering works and underinvestment in the water sector, the agencies 
said.

Iraq was still relying on U.N. support to provide essential water 
treatment chemicals with UNICEF alone providing 1,650 tonnes of chlorine 
last year, the statement said.

The suspension of water tankering services to tens of thousands of 
people in Baghdad, especially to displaced families and communities 
hosting them, increased the risk of cholera outbreaks, the agencies warned.

"Under the circumstances, Iraq has done extremely well to keep outbreaks 
of waterborne diseases, especially cholera, largely at bay so far. But 
this achievement is at risk unless more reliable sources of safe water 
reach families as soon as possible," the joint statement said.

No cholera cases were reported last year and the incidence of typhoid 
also decreased, according to WHO data.

The U.N. bodies said the need for aid was expected to rise in 2007 with 
the worsening humanitarian plight from raging sectarian violence and 
insurgent attacks.

They estimated that children and women account for nearly 70 percent of 
the over 712,000 Iraqis who were internally displaced last year after 
the bombing of a major Shi'ite shrine in February 2006 triggered a surge 
in sectarian violence.




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Kate Zaidan
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