Iraq rights commission decries expired food to Salahuddin refugees
Displaced Iraqi family from Mosul eat a simple meal for their Iftar, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan at a refugee camp al-Khazir in the outskirts of Erbil, Iraq June 10, 2017. Picture taken June 10, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro
Salahuddin (IraqiNews.com) An official at Iraq’s human rights commission has slammed the Iraqi government for handing expired food rations to refugees at Salahuddin province.
In a statement quoted by Shafaq News. Wahda al-Jumaili, a senior official at the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights, accused teams from the Iraqi Displacement and Migration Ministry of “distributing expired, low quality, rotten and poorly stored flour and rice” for refugees at Shahama and Karama refugee camps in Salahuddin province.
“What you are doing represents a sort of indifference to the lives of average people, and stands at odds with guidelines for internal displacement inspired by world human rights principles and the international humanitarian law,” Jumaili said, addressing the government.
“That causes a great embarrassment for the Iraqi government before the international community,” she added.
Iraq’s war against Islamic State militants, who occupied large parts of the country in 2014 to proclaim an Islamic “caliphate”, has displaced more than three million people, according to United Nations figures.
Refugees have reportedly endured difficult living conditions inside camps due to food and medicine shortages, as well as bad weather conditions.
Two refugees died in June after sustaining food poisoning in al-Khazer refugee camp in Mosul. Fifteen others were reportedly poisoned due to bad water, also in Mosul, in August.