Doctors in Iraq’s second biggest city, Basra, yesterday warned of an epidemic as a majority of the 1,3-million residents were still without safe drinking water three weeks after the war began.
Attempts to restore the supply have failed, despite hopes expressed in the first week that it would take a matter of days. Help from aid agencies is only trickling in.
Tamara al-Rifai, the representative of the International Red Cross based in Kuwait, said looting was partly to blame. Lack of security was making it difficult for aid agencies to enter the town, and looters had taken pipes that were being installed to help distribution.
”The fact that we have gone a few steps back makes it even more serious,” she said.
Dr Uday Abdul Bakri, general surgeon at the 600-bed Basra general hospital, said the hospital was dealing with many diarrhoea cases and the risk of water-acquired diseases, such as cholera and dysentery, was high.
”I think there will be an epidemic,” he said.
The shortage of drinking water is a problem across southern Iraq.
There is huge resentment within Basra against the British forces because of the lack of water and electricity. Residents also blame them for failing to control the looters.
One resident in the centre of Basra said: ”Bush bad. Blair bad. They destroyed our water and electricity.”
Another, Axad Toblanid (50) an engineer, said: ”We are unhappy with this freedom. We have no water. We have complained to the British army about this but they are not doing anything.
”It is not safe. The British army say ‘we are not policemen’. It is the rule of international law that any town where the army is in control must protect us, but they don’t.”
The army is to draft in two British police officers to Basra to give advice.
There are reports that a few hundred fedayeen, the fighters that were reputed to be most loyal to Saddam Hussein, are still holed up in the city.
Shots could be heard in Basra throughout Saturday night as looting continued. But during the day, tension is seeping out of the city.
The change in mood began on Saturday. In the morning, the city was largely deserted, with people staying indoors and shops closed, protected by metal grilles. But in the afternoon, though the shops remained closed, street markets opened selling vegetables and fruit, and residents tentatively left their houses.
The busiest areas were the riverside and slime-covered canals, where people were filling plastic water containers. Both are used for sewage.
Joint patrols by British military forces and Iraqi police started in Faw, south of Basra, yesterday.
Royal Marine Lee Haworth and Lieutenant Colonel Moyer Abdul Jabar walked side by side through the streets to the fascination of a large crowd following them, said Tom Newton Dunn of the Daily Mirror in a pooled despatch.
It was the first joint British military and Iraqi police patrol in the country, he reported.
Col Jabar (45) a former fireman, is the only policeman in the 10 000-strong town, and took up the job on Saturday.
Former policemen in Basra are also being vetted for links to the Ba’ath party before being allowed to return to their jobs. About 300 have volunteered and have started manning checkpoints around the city.
Military officials said the looting was slowly coming under control, with fewer people seen carrying away spoils than earlier in the week.
Hundreds gathered at the bombed and burnt-out former headquarters of the national security police, digging with their bare hands or any piece of metal they could find, or lying on the ground listening.
They said they were convinced they could hear the voices of prisoners still trapped in their cells, underneath the rubble. No one has yet emerged and no cells have been uncovered.
Ahmed Assi (41) an unemployed mechanic, said he was convinced there were prisoners alive who had been held for 10 or 15 years.
But, like most people in Basra, his mind turned quickly to the water issue: ”We have had no water for three weeks. People’s skins are turning an odd colour. They are sick in their stomachs.” – Guardian Unlimited Â