Avoid war at all costs: Caritas

Sydney
1 Dec 2002

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Avoid war at all costs: Caritas

As Australia considers whether to join a military coalition to enter Iraq if the current United Nations weapons inspection fails, a new report by international aid agency Caritas warns that war must be avoided at all costs.

“The horrendous burden of 12 years of sanctions and trade embargoes has left the people of Iraq highly vulnerable,” says Julian Filochowski, the Caritas Internationalis representative who headed a recent delegation to Iraq which produced the report.

“A war on Iraq will be devastating for the Iraqi people.”

The Caritas delegation visited Iraq to investigate the needs of the Iraqi people and to assist Caritas Iraq in putting a disaster preparedness plan into place.

The national director of Caritas Australia, Jack de Groot, says it has provided $60,000 to assist its local partner, Caritas Iraq, “to put in place emergency preparedness measures to cope with an emergency situation should there be a strike targeting Iraq”.

“Caritas Iraq is working with the Iraqi Red Crescent Society and the Iraq Red Cross to equip 40 medical centres with needed medical equipment that would provide life-saving medical care to thousands of injured Iraqi civilians.

“It is also training 42 doctors and 220 volunteers for emergency and field medical responses,” he said. “Caritas Australia has a long-standing concern about the situation of Iraqi women and children.

“The Iraqi infrastructure can no longer bear the weight of human need,” Mr de Groot said.

Women and children in Iraq continue to suffer from high levels of malnutrition.

One in every four children under the age of five is chronically malnourished.

The country’s health service is inadequate due to the economic sanctions placed on Iraq over the last 12 years.