The Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) has completed the first phase of its emergency relief programme for the victims of armed conflict in Iraq’s Anbar Governorate, with $1mn funding from Qatar Development Fund.
Over the past three weeks, QRCS personnel in Iraq distributed 6,000 food packages to 36,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in Fallujah and Anbar, and operated three mobile clinics to offer primary medical care to more than 80 IDPs.
Two tankers are dispatched everyday to provide 20,000 people with drinking water over six months, and awareness campaigns are launched to promote personal hygiene and prevent communicable diseases.
QRCS teams also conducted needs assessments across Anbar, particularly Fallujah, to collect data about the number of IDPs and their most urgent needs. This data is then shared with UN agencies and international humanitarian organisations.
As co-ordination is crucial to avoid duplication, to offer integrated services across the board and to ensure the maximum benefits for distressed families, the QRCS’s mission holds regular meetings with the various local and international partners involved.
The local leaders and communities are contacted to engage them in the response and assessment action plans.
In a statement, QRCS secretary general Saleh bin Ali al-Mohannadi said: “Humanitarian action in Iraq is facing alarmingly serious and complicated conditions in light of the political crisis and current conflicts. However, we in the QRCS are intensifying our efforts as an international neutral humanitarian organisation, utilising our track record of work in the world’s worst crises and zones.”
He emphasised the QRCS’s commitment to the seven international humanitarian principles, especially impartiality and neutrality.
“Our strategy is to hire well-trained field relief personnel and adopt strict monitoring and follow-up systems to ensure non-exploitation of humanitarian aid for political or personal gain,” he added.
“The QRCS is committed to the international humanitarian standards, ensuring QRC operation in the most difficult and complicated areas,” al-Mohannadi concluded.
One of the major crises in the world, the conflict in Iraq has stricken nearly one-third of the country’s population, causing 10mn to be displaced, 3.4mn of whom within the past 30 months.
About 20% of IDPs live in unregistered or substandard places, including unfinished structures, schools, public parks, and mosques.
The local community is hosting 30% of the displaced families, half of whom need better housing.
In Anbar, which has received as much as 44.3% of IDPs, many families fled the beleaguered Fallujah to be accommodated at only 13 camps in Amiriyah Fallujah, Khalidiya, and Habbaniyah.
Clashes in the western parts of Ramadi, the provincial capital, rendered more than 12,000 families of Hit City homeless, having to travel between 5km to 18km to find an IDP camp.