NCRI – On April 4, a dust storm engulfed Camp Liberty for 24 hours. With the arrival of the hot season, seasonal winds and dust and sand storms have spread contamination and aggravated diseases. During the two floods in December 2012 and January 2013, the overflow of one million liters of black water from torn or timeworn sewage tanks spread contamination throughout the camp.
Due to the inhuman siege, this contamination was never treated with anti-bacterial and anti-pollutant materials and insecticides not allowed into the camp. The contaminated areas of the camp have practically turned into centers for propagation of all sorts of contagious diseases. Due to absence of asphalt roads, the dirt roads and the traffic of vehicles on the dirt roads cause spread of contaminated particles throughout the camp.
Due to this situation, the number of residents suffering from eye infection has reached over 400 cases. This disease initiates with redness of the eye, eye pain, and blear-eye to be followed with inflammation of the eye and at times blurred vision.
Also, up till April 5th, more than 800 residents came down with viral fever. This illness is accompanied by extreme fatigue, general body pain, severe sore throat, dyspnea, chills and fevers that sometimes reach as high as 40o C. Due to dense population and impossibility to separate patients from the healthy, and lack of adequate spacing in containers, these diseases become epidemic very quickly.
During the past 27 years, residents never experienced such epidemic diseases and in light of having access to medical resources, adequate buildings, and low population density, all such cases would quickly come under control and care.
Iraqi government prevents residents from transferring their medical equipment from Ashraf to Liberty, the Iraqi clinic lacks basic equipment and facilities to handle emergency access, and residents are denied free access to medical services in Iraq. Martin Kobler has tried repeatedly to present the Iraqi clinic as a well-equipped medical center, and UNAMI falsely wrote last December, “There is a medical facility with an Iraqi physician at Camp Liberty. Ambulances are on alert around the clock.”
On 15 February 2012 and before the first group of Ashraf residents left for Liberty, Kobler wrote, “Residents in need of specialized medical and hospital treatment will be directed to these institutions by the Iraqi doctors in the medical clinic in CL. The residents will bring their medical equipment to CL.”
However, no equipment has yet been allowed to be transferred to Liberty despite residents’ insistence.
Fourteen months ago, Kobler made a big lie and claimed in his statement of 31 January 2012 that Liberty’s standards are in conformity with “International standards” in a bid to deceive the Ashraf residents and relocate them to Liberty prison. This is while the UNHCR expert had reported officially on 19 January 2012 that Liberty lacked humanitarian standards.
Infrastructures are so damaged that even millions of dollars of residents’ expenditures during past one year have not improved the situation.
While underscoring that in addition to insecurity, critical situation of infrastructures, contaminated environment, and outbreak of infectious diseases have increasingly endangered the health of residents at Liberty, Iranian Resistance once again calls on the United States and United Nations to take immediate measures to return the residents to Ashraf and prevent further humanitarian damages.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
April 7, 2013
