Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Baghdad (Fides Service) – “After 12 years of United Nations sanctions many people in Iraq are extremely poor” Father Nizar Semaan in the diocese of Ninive tells Fides Service when we asked about the present economic and social situation of his country.
“ Those who suffered most in these 12 years were the middle class and the most needy who in the last two or three years have struggled with a state of dire poverty”.
Father Nizar lists the social categories most affected by the UN sanctions: “pensioners, state workers and ordinary workers can afford to eat meat only once every two weeks”.
The priest from Ninive says “now all this has ended and we must think only of the future. It is not worthy of Christians to cry over the past; we look ahead because we are full of hope. This is why I hope the conscience of the world will soon awaken to relieve the needs of the Iraqi people.”
Father Nizar traces an updated picture of the present situation: “pensioners and state workers who live on their wages, have received nothing for two months now; it is easy to imagine their dramatic situation. We should keep in mind that Iraqi families are very large and that one wage must feed a lot of people. Workers (about 40% of the population) have been out of work since three months before the war started.”
With regard to Iraqi Christians, Father Nizar says “in the small Christian villages around Mosul we note extraordinary forms of solidarity. Christians share all they have with one another and everyone manages to live decorously. Caritas, which plays an important role in the country, co-ordinates this spontaneous solidarity”.
Father Nizar makes an appeal for the Iraqi Christians. “I call on the Christians of the world, particularly church organisations to bring help to Iraqi Christians. I am willing, if necessary, to accompany personally humanitarian convoys to Christian villages. It is important that in these difficult times Iraqi Christians feel the support of their brothers and sisters in other countries”.
Besides economic difficulties, Iraqis also face other threats, for example the outbreak of cholera in Bassora, the second largest city. According to WHO, World Health Organisation, 90% of about 200 children hospitalised every day at the city’s paediatric hospital suffer from diarrhoea. WHO also denounces the precarious conditions in Iraqi hospitals, particularly in the laboratories which are unable to operate since people looted the medical apparatus. LM (Fides Service 9/5/2003 EM lines 39 Words: 460)
