Aid that Escaped the Looting Helps People Who Didn't

April 30, 2003

By Jonathan Frerichs, ACT Press Officer

Baghdad -- Aid that escaped the looting of Baghdad is reaching people who were not so lucky. A pile of personal hygiene kits is under armed guard at the heavily looted Al Rashad Psychiatric Hospital tonight, distribution to follow soon. Next door at the Home for the Aged, a man walks to his room with a new red quilt draped regally across one shoulder – 100 other elderly, gifts in hand, are smiling too. Across town at what must be the world's newest Palestinian refugee camp, 125 families are settled in tents fitted out with household items and fresh bedding provided by churches in North America.

Nothing like smiles brought them to this. At the psychiatric hospital a three-day paroxysm of looting stripped the facility down to the wires in its walls. The trouble began when tanks entering Baghdad breached the hospital's 4-meter-high perimeter fence and looters stormed in through the opening they left.

All 1,015 residents fled, some were raped and one was shot dead. Now, nearly three weeks later, only about 400 patients are accounted for. The 700 who are still missing are roaming the streets of the capital, the Red Cross (ICRC) says, some highly unstable and all in need of care. Al Rashad is the only mental hospital in Iraq.

"The U.S. forces did nothing for us," said Dr. Raghad Sarsan, a hospital psychiatrist. "In fact, here and other places the looters followed the tanks around."

"Now we are obliged to accept security from a local religious militia. Many are youth of about 17 patrolling the hospital grounds today, Kalashnikov in hand. "Now they are working for a local religionist party."

The modest gifts reaching their destinations on this bright spring day came through the war themselves. They had been pre-positioned months ago for whatever might lie ahead. These particular items were in a warehouse in a district where Republican Guard units took up positions during the war. When aerial attacks ensued, the Al Sabah Plastics Factory across the alley was partially destroyed and the factory next door was peppered by strafing. Its corrugated iron roof lets sunlight through like a giant sieve, or planetarium.

During the fall of Baghdad looters came here too. From the plastics factory they took cash, records, bottles and bottling machines.

"I asked the U.S. Army to protect our warehouse but they didn't so I paid some people to stand guard," said Khaled Sudani of Islamic Relief Agency. His stocks, from Action by Churches Together (ACT) member Lutheran World Relief and from Mennonite Central Committee, were almost all saved.

The people receiving them now have not been so lucky.

How to Help

The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) is one of Action by Churches Together's (ACT) partners in this humanitarian response. ACT is an ecumenical coalition that includes many groups, such as the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) and Church World Service (CWS). One hundred percent of your tax-deductible gift to Advance #623225 "Iraq Emergency" will be used for this response. The generous giving of United Methodists to the One Great Hour of Sharing supplements the cost of Advance gifts. Give through a local United Methodist church or send financial contributions to: UMCOR, 475 Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, NY 10115. Call 1-800-554-8583 to make a credit card donation.

Source: Action by Churches Together, http://www.act-intl.org.