By Shannon Raymond This week marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of the invasion of Kuwait by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The invasion provoked outrage in the international community, prompting the United Nations Security Council to institute a worldwide ban on trade with Iraq with the stated goal of forcing Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait. Even after […]
Category: Humanitarian Crisis
IRAQ’S HEALTH SYSTEM AT RISK: THE STRUGGLE TO FIGHT COVID-19 AND SAVE LIVES
The COVID-19 pandemic, which for the first few months seemed to mysteriously spare Iraq’s exposed population, is now hitting the country of 39 million and its under-resourced health system hard. The main cause has been poor compliance with social distancing policies by many Iraqis who haven’t taken the pandemic seriously or prefer to risk disease […]
MITIGATING THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 IN IRAQ
The COVID-19 pandemic is hitting Iraq at a particularly bad time. The country has just begun to ramp up testing for the highly contagious virus, and the 1,031 confirmed cases and 64 deaths to date may only be the tip of an iceberg yet to reveal itself. These figures may also be far from accurate. […]
Overwhelming Need
“We need to maintain the flow of water and food. Basics only, inexpensive but continuous and lifesaving.” – Hala al-Saraf, Director of our Soccer Salam partner, the Iraq Health Access Organization Iraqi Security Forces and their allies are quickly making gains in their efforts to clear the city of Mosul of ISIS militants. Unfortunately, as […]
Reassessing the Global Refugee Crisis
“Conflict is natural. The issue is how well we manage conflict and attempt to not allow it progress to violence.” – President of USIP, Nancy Lindborg In a globalized world, it is nearly impossible to be completely insulated. There are faster planes, faster trains, and faster bandwidth. However, what has emerged, in many cases, from […]
The Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq: Internal Displacement
Introduction This post will focus on Internally Displaced Persons, or IDPs. Understanding the significance of the IDP problem is crucial to understanding the humanitarian crisis occurring in Iraq today. There are currently roughly 3.9 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) in Iraq, 3.2 million of those being displaced since January 2014. Unlike refugees, Internally Displaced Persons […]
The Power of Empathy and Advocacy
“I have long said that Americans are the most generous people in the world. But we do have the shortest attention spans. And when it comes to global crises today, I fear that too many in the United States believe that we can insulate ourselves from the world’s problems and leave it to the countries […]
President Obama Sits Down with Prime Minister Abadi in the Oval Office
On Tuesday, U.S. President Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi met in the Oval Office. Both leaders expressed their commitment to a robust relationship between the two countries, emphasizing priorities for continued cooperation. Several of these priorities reflect the progress that Haider al-Abadi has made in improving governance in his first eight months […]
ALERT: Funding Is Running Out for Syrian Refugees
“But the fact is the Syrian crisis is a very complex crisis. And it’s just going from bad to worse. It has taken too long. We understand that the suffering of the people also has increased. And the international community must stand by the Syrian people until this crisis is over. We, they really cannot […]
Humanitarian Crisis Overview Series: Health, WASH, and Food Security
Last week’s blog post on the displacement issue in Iraq’s ongoing humanitarian crisis highlighted an important phenomenon; the violence has come to intensify existing development problems in Iraq. Among the most important of these problems are health, food security, and WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) programs. Highlights: After 4 decades of healthcare decline in Iraq, […]