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… Read more
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… Read more
“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… Read more
“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… Read more
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.… Read more
“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… Read more
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… Read more
“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… Read more
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… Read more
The current displacement crisis in Iraq did not erupt suddenly. It is the newest wave of a continual problem in Iraq. A 2009 report from the Brookings Institute noted:
“In fact, since the late 1960s, Iraq has produced the largest number of refugees and internally displaced persons in the Middle… Read more
