- Due to infrastructure failure, lack of drainage system and lack of service vehicles, significant portion of Liberty is once again flooded with water and sewage due to rainfall
- Residents of Liberty demand to return to Camp Ashraf
NCRI – Following the rainfall of yesterday and last night (Monday, January 28), which is still continuing, water has covered large parts of Camp Liberty once again. Due to the lack of necessary infrastructure and lack of paved or concrete roads, commuting in many parts has become impractical or faces serious problems.
This is happening while since the start of the rainfall and water buildup, residents have allocated all their usable water tankers to drain water and have tried to pump out the water from parts of the camp through pipes, but the Iraqi forces prevented drainage of sewage and pumping of water out of Camp by pipes, and made it conditional on the approval of Sadeq Mohammad Kazem. Consequently, the situation continues to deteriorate and at any moment sewage can enter the Camp area and cause severe contamination.
Yesterday, after several days of stonewalling, Iraqi forces did not deliver sewage tankers spare parts, which were brought from Ashraf to Liberty, and returned them to Ashraf, that makes the crisis more serious.
The current raucous situation shows again that Liberty, despite the efforts and huge costs by residents in the last year, still lacks the minimum humanitarian standards, and Martin Kobler’s goal from his statement of January 31, 2012 about conformity of Liberty with humanitarian standards has been nothing but to deceive Ashraf residents and their forcible homelessness.
Infrastructure damage and failure in Camp Liberty has been brought up by the residents from the onset to the United Nations authorities but none of the written or verbal commitments of the Special Representative of the Secretary General has been fulfilled.
The residents of Liberty, by strongly protesting their forcible homelessness and considering fundamental problems in Liberty infrastructure, which makes it inhabitable, and based on the fact that all indications point out that the relocation of a significant number of residents to third countries is not in perspective, are urging a return to Camp Ashraf.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
January 29, 2013