12/05/03 Mosul – the difference a few days can make

All systems are now go for northern Iraq after a rapid assessment by World Vision’s relief team

The team found massive across-the-board need in the city of Mosul and outlying districts.

Security concerns kept a frustrated World Vision relief team out of the northern region of Ninewa for weeks but improved safety has allowed assessments inside Mosul that found huge needs in education, in hospitals, as well as a growing number of identified internally displaced people.

The UN has now classified Mosul and major Ninewa roads into the city as permissive.

US forces say the city is largely safe with joint patrols with local police now taking place. Nighttime looting still occurs and there is widespread availability of guns.

World Vision has now secured rooms a hotel in Mosul and will be moving the current office and accommodation from the Kurdish enclave city of Arbil, 75km away, into Mosul over the next few days.

Fruitful contacts have been made with CMOC – the US military’s arm for coordinating with NGOs, with long-time players in Iraqi Kurdistan - Save the Children (UK), with WFP, DART, and with Mosul’s departments of education and health.

The groundwork has also been laid for WV’s role in tracking Iraq’s internally displaced people in Ninewa following a meeting with the International Office for Migration. The training of tracing teams is expected to begin in the next week. Once traced, thousands of pre-positioned kits that include kitchen equipment, tents, plastic sheeting and soap can be dispatched.

Improved security and the formation of a new and ethnically diverse Mosul district council means that WV has a structure to work with. WV is expecting to meet with leadership tomorrow.

While a small number of NGOs are already working in the city other humanitarian agencies are now likely to follow. The UN is moving in on Tuesday. Iraqis in the re-formed administration have so far welcomed World Vision with open arms but wherever the team has gone people urge help quickly. As the team has travelled about the city, members have witnessed shocking scenes of the damage done by looters following the fall of the regime. Everywhere there are tragic signs of schools, state companies, banks and factories having been looted and vandalised.

Many state employees have not been paid for weeks, including doctors and teachers. The price of fuel is escalating making it impossible for many ordinary people to travel, for businesses to get going, for parents to get their children to school and for patients to get to hospital. There are long lines for fuel that was cheaply available during Saddam’s era despite attempts by the US military to stop the black market trade.

The destruction of so much and the lack of salary payments mean that many are now jobless. While most people rely on basic WFP rationed dry food stocks handed out under the Iraqi regime, many cannot afford meat, fresh fruit or other items. World Vision talked to one teacher who was selling canned drinks at the roadside as an extra job.

He said 30 of the students at his primary school had also left to make extra money for their struggling families - selling fuel and snacks.

“It is a crime,” said the teacher who was witnessing a former primary school pupil selling the fuel. “I’m very sad about it but I can’t do anything for him because of the economic situation.”
The escalating prices mean that doctors now fear they will be unable to keep hospital staff from leaving and taking other jobs. They are becoming impoverished having not been paid for two months.

The Mosul team of five will be strengthened over the next week allowing World Vision to quickly formulate program proposals to draw in new and promised aid money.