LONDON, 9 April 2003 — A shortage of fresh water in Baghdad is threatening the ability of hospitals to carry out operations and depriving the population of sanitation, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned. At least one hospital in the suburb of Mahmudiya has been overwhelmed by the number of civilian and military casualties, according to the agency’s director of operations, Pierre Krahenbuhl. Another ICRC official described the situation as “extremely precarious”.
Water supplies stopped Thursday because mains electricity, which powers the pumps, had been knocked out by the fighting. Red Cross teams have kept generators running and set up water treatment installations but have found it difficult to move as sporadic fighting spreads across the capital.
“Fresh water supplies for hospitals are very important but the environment is becoming less and less predictable,” he told a press conference in London.
At one stage on Saturday, following air raids and the US military incursion, civilian casualties were arriving at one Baghdad hospital at the rate of 100 an hour. Water shortages are also acute in Karbala, Najaf, Nassiriyah and Basra, south of Baghdad. The ICRC has six foreign aid workers in Baghdad, four in Basra and another four in the north, as well as more than 100 local staff.
Those in the capital said they could only reach one hospital, Al-Kindi, yesterday, where surgeons were working non-stop and running short of anesthetics and equipment. Doctors said they had taken in four dead and 176 injured in the previous 24 hours.
The Red Cross delivered thousands of one-liter water bags to the main hospitals in Baghdad before the American assault began but stocks are now running low. The agency is now attempting to bring in another 30,000 liters to the city’s five main surgical hospitals. One inhabitant, holding his one-year-old daughter in his arms, told a reporter: “The situation is not good. There is no water. All the citizens are very thirsty. On television and radio, they promised to give us water, but all we have is air.”
