Aid shortage to hit Iraqi refugees

Suha Philip Ma’ayeh, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: May 27. 2008 9:51PM UAE / May 27. 2008 5:51PM GMT

AMMAN // The queue at the aid distribution centre in Zarqa backs out onto the street, where Narjas Assem waits impatiently for a food package, along with dozens of impoverished Iraqi families who arrive at the centre in north-western Jordan in droves at the end of each month.

After a long wait, Mrs Assem, a mother of three, shows the volunteers her UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) card, signalling her status as a refugee, and is handed a brown box containing a sack of rice, sugar, milk, lentils, tins of tuna and other basic food items.

She also receives a hygiene kit that includes two tubes of toothpaste, soap, washing detergent and sanitary pads. On top of that, she is handed a cash stipend of US$210 (Dh770).

“When we receive the packages and the money, it is a day of joy for us,” Mrs Assem said. “Last time I bought my husband bananas when he was in hospital. His potassium is low and he needs to eat well.”

For Mrs Assem, 43, who has a diabetic husband and three children to look after, the aid from the UNHCR assistance programme is her only means of support.

In Zarqa, like elsewhere, the UNHCR co-operates with local non-governmental organisations to provide aid to the most vulnerable Iraqis who were uprooted during the war.

The vast majority of refugees in Syria and Jordan depend on medical, food and financial assistance.

Last month in Jordan, more than 30,000 refugees from Iraq received food assistance and almost 19,000 received subsidised medical care, while in Syria, more than 128,000 Iraqi refugees received food assistance and close to 40,000 received subsidised health care, according to the UN agency.

But that could all change as the UNHCR, facing a shortage in funding, said this month that many of its assistance programmes run the risk of closure. In January, the UNHCR appealed for US$261 million for its operations on behalf of some of the 4.7 million people uprooted by the conflict in Iraq, but so far it has received only US$134m. It is feared the downsizing of distribution programmes in both countries will lead to widespread malnutrition.

“That’s the only aid that we get,” said Mrs Assem, who was distraught at hearing the agency might reduce its assistance. “If we are cut off, my children will suffer from anaemia. We will live like vagabonds.”

Intissar Edwan, co-ordinator of the Jordanian National Alliance for Combating Hunger and Enhancing Food Security, a distribution partner of the UNHCR assistance programme, said her phone does not stop ringing when food distribution is delayed, even by a day. “Iraqis wait day-by-day for the food package,” she said. “They call me and say we have run out of food.”

With no means of income, Ms Edwan said many Iraqi families were completely dependent on aid. “If they are cut off they cannot survive; the situation will be disastrous,” she said, adding that the sharp increase in food prices that has swept Jordan and elsewhere is exacerbating the situation.

Between 500,000 and 750,000 Iraqis are estimated to be living in Jordan, with 54,000 Iraqis registered with the UNHCR as asylum seekers since the early 1990s. The majority have overstayed their visas and are thus not permitted to work. Many are struggling financially and find it increasingly difficult to make ends meet in a country where inflation hit 11 per cent in the first quarter of the year, the highest in two decades.

Rising global food prices have not helped. The price of dairy products and eggs increased 31 per cent in the first quarter of this year, and fruit rose by 23.4 per cent compared to the same period last year. Sugar also went up by 2.7 per cent.

“We are being doubly hit because not only is there an increase in the cost of providing food and basic necessities to a particular family, but now there are more families approaching us in light of the rising cost of living,” Imran Riza Riza, the UNHCR representative in Amman, told The Jordan Times this month.

Hakima Husseini, a 29-year-old widow and mother of three, lives in a rundown hotel in central Amman, where a friend pays her US$7 daily room rate.

She is another refugee who is almost completely dependent on what the UNHCR provides.“My children had bread for dinner last night, and today we do not have any food for breakfast,” said Mrs Husseini, whose husband was killed four years ago in Iraq. “Nobody is helping us, I have tried to reach the UNHCR to get help, but until now I haven’t heard anything.”

smaayeh@thenational.ae