IRANIAN REFUGEES DENIED FOOD BY IRAQI GOVERNMENT

IRANIAN REFUGEES DENIED FOOD BY IRAQI GOVERNMENT.

Once again, the Iraqi government is intensifying the inhumane siege on Camp Liberty, where 3,000 Iranian refugees are residing. 

The agents of the Iraqi Prime Ministry office have been preventing two food trucks from entering the camp for the past 48 hours by resorting to baseless excuses. Furthermore, the Iraqi government is preventing the camp’s sewage from being discharged, which is causing black water tanks to overflow and will soon become the source of dangerous epidemic diseases. Given the severe medical restrictions and the medical siege that the Iraqi government imposes on the residents, this aggravating situation is making life in the camp intolerable.

As a reminder, since 2009, when the protection of the residents was transferred from the US to the government of Iraq, Iraqi authorities have constantly kept the residents under a total blockade, aiming at making their lives unbearable. In the past months, the Iraqi government has raised the pressure and restrictions against the residents even more than before.

As I had previously informed all of you, since two weeks ago, the Iraqi government had prevented the entrance of food and medicine into Camp Liberty. Following international efforts by many human rights advocates and especially MEPs and members of the US Congress, and the good work that all of you carried out on Facebook and Twitter in urging to US government and the UN to put pressure on the Iraqi government to lift the inhumane siege against the residents, the Iraqi government was finally forced to allow a small amount of food and medicine into the camp. But with the passage of a few days, it is trying anew to mount the pressure on the residents by denying them food.

I once again request that you resume your invaluable and effective activities to help lift the inhumane siege that the Iraqi government is imposing on Camp Liberty residents. By sending emails and Tweets to UNAMI and US Embassy in Baghdad, remind them of their legal and moral obligation for the safety, security and well-being of the residents and urge them to intervene and prevent the Iraqi government from carrying out inhumane measures against the residents of Camp Liberty.