The ICRC says that the situation has not significantly improved since March 2008 when it published a wide ranging report, "Iraq: no let-up in the humanitarian crisis" that called Iraq's humanitarian situation among the most critical in the world.

Since then, the water supply has continued to deteriorate, with millions of people relying on insufficient and poor quality supplies due to poorly maintained water and sewage systems and a shortage of sanitation engineers.

Millions of people are at serious risk of water-borne diseases, with children particularly vulnerable. Cholera cases peaked in a number of provinces during the hottest months of August and September.

"Iraqis urgently need access to clean water. They try to get it from rivers and wells but these sources are contaminated throughout the country so many people become ill, " says Patrick Yussef, Head of the ICRC sub delegation in Baghdad.

Most of Iraq's water comes from its two main rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, which are heavily polluted by household waste and litter, further contaminating the water supply. In the poorer areas of Baghdad, the streets are flooded with sewage, which seeps into the walls and under the floors of people's houses causing them to collapse.

At 500 dinars (half a US dollar) for 10 litres, many Iraqis cannot afford to buy bottled water and have to drink untreated water from the polluted rivers, at considerable risk to their health.

Under-resourced hospitals with depleted medical supplies are struggling to cope with the numbers of sick. At Al Sadr General Hospital in Amara, doctors sometimes have to supplement the medical supplies from the Ministry of Health with those they buy themselves at the market.

To help hospitals maintain basic health care services, the ICRC provides medicines and surgical dressings. It also supplies plastic bags of drinking water to families in cholera-prone areas. At Abu Ghraib General Hospital the ICRC has installed new water storage tanks, repaired toilets and improved the sewage system.

But the hospitals will continue to have a high case load of people suffering from water-borne diseases as long as people drink from the contaminated rivers.

ICRC water and sanitation experts are working with the Iraqi authorities to repair and maintain pumping stations across Iraq, including Al Wethba and Al Sanak near Baghdad, and along the East Tigris, securing the water supply for millions of people.

The Al Wethba pumping station has been newly renovated by the ICRC, almost doubling the amount of water supplied by the station. It now provides 12700 cubic metres of water a day to some 850,000 people in Baghdad including the city's main hospital.
Key Facts & Figures:

In 2007 more than more than 3 million people (more than 50% of those women and 30% children) were direct beneficiaries of ICRC water, habitat and sanitation activities which included the repair, rehabilitation and sometimes the upgrading of water storage systems and distribution networks

• 144 projects completed countrywide to either refurbish or respond to emergencies, to restore health infrastructure, water treatment plants/compact units and sewage lifting stations throughout Iraq, including areas most affected by the conflict such as 41 in Baghdad, 18 in Diyala, 14 in Anbar and 17 in Ninawa
• more than 32,000 people, including IDPs, had their water supply ensured through emergency ICRC water and sanitation projects
• 25 primary health care centres in Anbar, Babel, Baghdad, Diwaniya, Karbala, Salah Al Deen and Wasit provinces serving an average of more than 3,820 patients per day had their sanitation facilities and vital electro-mechanical components repaired or upgraded
• 13 hospitals, with a combined capacity to treat around 2,862 inpatients, had their water and/or sanitation systems restored
• More than 1.5 million litre plastic bags of drinking water produced and delivered to Iraqis in need.
  

In 2008, it is estimated that over 4 million Iraqis have benefited from the ICRC's emergency repairs, and renovation to the water and sanitation system as well as the rebuilding of clinics and hospitals.

Shotlist:

Date and Location: 6 to 15 October 2008. Baghdad governorate and Amara in southern Iraq
Sound: Natural with English and Arabic
Duration 10'
Camera: Omar Saad
Producer: Hicham Hassan, Jan Powell
Source: ICRC – Access all
Ref: V F CR-F-01010-A, please credit ICRC

00:00 Streets in Baghdad flooded with sewage water.

Men walking in flooded streets.

00:24 Soundbite: Passer by (Arabic)

"You see the sewage system is destroyed. This is not only a problem for the children but also for adults as they contract skin diseases, rashes and cholera. They get all of these diseases because the sewage water is mixed up with the drinking water".

00:32 Soundbite: Passer by (Arabic)

"Sometimes people turn on their taps and dirty water comes out. Even the ice we buy in summer is contaminated. When you look in the fridge you can see that the ice is contaminated so this has meant many people have got sick".

01:09 Children in the street.

Ruined and collapsed house

01:45 Soundbite: Old woman (Arabic) in the ruins of the house.

"There is a big gaping hole behind our house that is full of waste water. The water is seeping into the walls and floors and the foundations are crumbling. The walls are falling down one by one and on top of that we have to walk through all this waste water every day.

02:08 Old woman washing up.

Little boy sucking water out of a pipe.
Woman drinking water from a water cooler.
Exterior and sign of Al Sadr hospital, Amara. Southern Iraq
Patients outside and inside hospital

03:04 Soundbite: Dr Ali (Arabic)

"As well as the medical supplies we receive from the Ministry of Health, we also urgently need anaesthetics, medicines, bandages, and sterile surgical dressings. Sometimes we have to buy them in the market, but most of what we need we get from the ICRC sub delegation in Basra".

03:43 Sick children

Road from Basra to Baghdad.
Maternity Patients at Abu Ghraib General Hospital

04:16 Soundbite: Dr Ibrahim (Arabic)

"The hospital used to suffer from regular water shortages and we had to transfer some of our patients to Baghdad city. But now the ICRC has installed water tanks and so we are much better off. When cholera broke out the ICRC supplied us with 25,000 plastic bags of drinking water that we distributed to families in the area and the number of cholera cases dropped".

04:52 Dr Ibrahim with two sick children

05:02 Soundbite: woman with daughter in hospital (Arabic)

"My daughter is here because she drank dirty water. We have no clean water at home. We have no running water and the only water we get is from the river".

05:19 Trash and garbage along the river Tigris

Fishermen and children swimming

06:45 Soundbite: Fisherman (Arabic)

"All the pollution comes from the waste water dumped here, as well as from trash, plastic bags, other household waste. People throw everything into the river, even petrol."

07:06 Children by the river

07:14 Soundbite: Patrick Yussef Head of ICRC Baghdad sub-delegation

"it is clear that Iraqis urgently need access to clean water. They try to get it from rivers and wells but these sources are contaminated throughout the country so many people become ill".

07:49 ICRC vehicle in front of Baghad delegation office

08:10 Soundbite: Patrick Yussef Head of ICRC Baghdad sub-delegation

"Regarding certain governorates, there has been improvement in security. People could now, in certain areas, move from freely, stay out late more than was the case before. However, in other governorates, the security situation forces people to go back to their homes earlier. We can not say that the situation has improved everywhere. But our presence today in Iraq shows that the ICRC wants to share the concerns of the Iraqis and to support them as well as to support the institutions, ministries and departments".

09:14 Al Wethba pumping stations, Baghdad. ICRC technicians working at Al Wethba pumping station. Women and children in the street.

10:00 END