Iraqis Desperately Need Aid, Worker Says

Michael Nahhal, a Christian relief worker in Iraq, said one scene sticks in his mind: As if out of nowhere, boys with ashen faces and wiry frames appeared at the door of a sandwich shop in the southern Iraqi city of Basra as he and associates from the Iraqi Red Crescent ordered something to eat.

The youngest boy couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 years old, he said, the oldest 13. Nahhal described their bare feet, ragged clothes and long, disheveled hair.

“They were begging. They pointed fingers at the food,” Nahhal said. But the shop owner shouted at the boys, shooing them away from the customers.

So, Nahhal said, he and his Iraqi co-workers bought sandwiches for the boys.

“You know, we had them for a moment, for a meal,” the Lebanese citizen, a member of the Greek Orthodox Church, recalled this week in Los Angeles. “But to take care of them needs a lot of effort. This is a common sight in Basra.”

The story is worth telling, he said, because when it comes to Iraq, the West concentrates on political events and on its dictator, Saddam Hussein.

Lost is “the humanitarian situation.”

Iraq is the land thought by some to be the site of the Garden of Eden, a paradise described in the Bible. But it’s hardly a utopia these days. Malnutrition, disease and poverty stalk the nation.

Yet, 5 1/2 years after Operation Desert Storm, it remains a daunting, delicate task to rally relief efforts for the nation that continues to top the enemies list of the United States.

Nahhal’s current trip to the United States, for instance, comes at a time when some leading Christian groups have been reluctant to get involved in ever-explosive Iraqi issues, worried that even speaking up for humanitarian aid might be misunderstood as tacit support for Hussein.

When the Clinton administration recently launched limited missile attacks on Iraq--for sending troops into the northern part of the country to aid one of two feuding Kurdish factions--many Christian leaders in the United States remained silent. Neither the National Council of Catholic Bishops nor the National Council of Churches--which in the past have condemned many types of military actions--lodged protests with the White House.

“With a complicated situation such as Iraq, sometimes it’s better to make no comment and be criticized for that than to say something that comes out sounding wrong,” Dale Bishop, Middle East-area executive for the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), told the Religion News Service last month.

Nahhal, who has coordinated relief services in Iraq for the Middle East Council of Churches since 1991, is in the United States speaking to churches and at universities about the humanitarian side of the crisis.

Medicine is in short supply, he said. Babies are born prematurely and malnourished. Food is expensive. Diets consist mainly of carbohydrates. A lack of chlorine and machine parts for sewage treatment systems has led to an upsurge in water-borne diseases. Unemployment is high.

“We are the churches,” Nahhal said. “We are concerned about human beings and the welfare of society. . . . People are . . . dying. We cannot keep our eyes closed and not expose this reality to the international communities.”

Each year, the Middle East Council of Churches, an arm of the World Council of Churches, spends more than $2 million for Iraqi relief, mainly medicine. Nahhal said the council’s efforts are coordinated with other nongovernmental organizations to avoid duplication. Even so, he said, the total effort reaches only 5% of the Iraqi population of 20 million.

“Five percent is not a small [amount]. But compared to 20 million people, it is nothing,” Nahhal said. “So whatever support we give, we are not supporting the regime [of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein]. We are helping the people.”

Nahhal, who is due to return to the Middle East next week, said American churches have responded positively--often making donations through Church World Service headquarters in New York--when assured that any aid would help civilians.

“This is encouraging,” Nahhal said. “Of course they are concerned about the [political] changes taking place in Iraq. [But] this is up to them. As a humanitarian relief coordinator in Iraq, I’m concentrating on the humanitarian part.”

He touts Christian efforts to alleviate suffering as a way to counteract the trend toward Islamic radicalization in the region. Christians, who make up less than 3% of the population in Iraq, are free to practice their faith there, he said, and would be in a far worse situation if the country followed the course of Iran and, more recently, Afghanistan, where radical Islamists rule with an iron hand.

There is no mistaking Nahhal’s caution in discussing such matters. Before an interview begins, he explains that he does not wish to speak about internal Iraqi politics and risk saying anything that might offend Hussein, thus jeopardizing the humanitarian mission.

A major need is for medicine. It is in such short supply, he said, that doctors are sometimes unable to treat children bitten by rabid dogs that stray in from the desert.

“The doctors were giving a half a dose. They didn’t have enough. They didn’t know if a child would survive or not with just half a dose,” Nahhal said.

One barrier has been United Nations sanctions, though the world body recently agreed to partially lift the oil embargo against Iraq so that it can raise funds for food and medicine.

But “the sanctions committee is very literal to the point that they refuse to allow soap into Iraq because it’s not food or medicine,” he said. “How can doctors operate without some disinfectant? This is something we face in our relief programs.”