During 2006, ICRC activities – in many cases carried out in cooperation with the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) – brought some improvement to the lives of millions of people in Iraq, through water and sanitation projects, support for the health and emergency services, emergency relief, restoring family links and visits to detainees.

Visits to people deprived of freedom

Throughout 2006, the ICRC continued to visit people deprived of their freedom and held under the authority of the Multi-National Forces in Iraq (MNF-I) and the Kurdistan Regional Government, with a view to ensuring that their conditions of detention and treatment complied with the Geneva Conventions and other relevant international standards.

The visits were carried out according to standard ICRC procedures, including interviews in private with the detainees. Confidential reports containing the findings of these visits, as well as recommendations, were submitted to the detaining authorities.

During the year the ICRC visited around 15,400 detainees in Iraq, individually monitoring more than 9,400. Twenty-five visits were made to places of detention under MNF-I authority, (including Camp Cropper in Baghdad and its extension, Camps Bucca and Shaibeh in the south and Camp Fort Suse in the north); more than 80 visits were made to 18 places of detention under the authority of the Kurdistan Regional Government.

The ICRC issued more than 560 certificates to released detainees, enabling them to apply for state benefits.

Maintaining family links

In 2006, more than 30,000 Red Cross messages were distributed to detainees and almost 37,000 were collected from them. These were delivered to detainees' families all over the country by IRCS staff and volunteers, often in very difficult conditions.

The ICRC made around 5,800 phone calls to families on behalf of detainees in 2006, reassuring relatives – in Iraq and abroad – that they were alive and well.

Family visit programme

In December 2006, the ICRC extended its family visits programme to Camp Shaibeh. More than 100 families received an allowance towards travel costs. At Camp Bucca, where the scheme was introduced in October 2005, thousands of families were helped to visit their detained relatives.

Support to medico-legal structures in Iraq

As the number of people killed in attacks rises, the medico-legal institutions in Iraq have found it increasingly difficult to cope with the identification and proper treatment of human remains.

To reduce the risk of bodies remaining unidentified or unclaimed, the ICRC continued supporting these institutions, rehabilitating mortuaries and storage facilities and providing equipment and training.

Response to emergencies: medical

Faced with daily attacks that left dozens of dead and wounded, the ICRC provided essential supplies to hospitals and other health facilities throughout Iraq in 2006, to help them cope with medical emergencies resulting from the violence.

It supplied more than 20 kits, containing enough material to treat up to 3,000 seriously injured people. More than half were delivered to health facilities in Baghdad (including al Imam Ali, al Kindi, al Yarmouk, and al Nauman hospitals); others were dispatched to hospitals in nine other governorates (al Anbar, Kerbala, Mosul, Kirkuk, Najaf, Basra, Missan, Qadisiya, and Erbil).

The ICRC supplied essential emergency and surgical equipment to al Qaim hospital, as well as medical equipment to a mobile clinic in the Abu Ghraib area. It funded an occupational therapist for al Rashad hospital – Baghdad’s main psychiatric facility, with 1,200 patients.

In 2006, the ICRC provided training on war-victim care to about 80 Iraqi health workers.

Response to emergencies: relief

Hundreds of families continued to flee their homes because of the violence. By the end of the year, there were estimated to be between 420,000 and 600,000 internally displaced people. Many of them are in desperate need of food, drinking water and shelter.

In 2006, the ICRC increased its assistance to IDPs and others, providing them with food and other essential items.

Food and non-food items were also provided to 25,000 families in nine governorates (Baghdad, Diyala, al Anbar, Saladin, Kerbala, Diwaniyah, Suleymaniya, Dohuk and Erbil) through branches of the Iraq Red Crescent. Some 12,000 other families affected by fighting and displacement were assisted either directly or through charitable institutions such as Sunni and Shia bodies. Over 2,000 refugee and returnee families in need also received assistance in northern Iraq.

Following heavy floods in the north of the country in January and October, the ICRC and the IRCS assisted 4,000 families.

Support to health services

Throughout the year, the ICRC supported Iraq’s health services by repairing or renovating vital components of the water-supply, sanitation and electrical systems, focusing on areas affected by military operations, sectarian violence and with a high influx of displaced people.

During 2006, the ICRC:

• repaired or upgraded 67 primary health care centres in seven governorates (al Anbar, Baghdad, Babel, Wasit, Saladin, Diwaniya and Kerbala), which together treat more than 9,000 patients per day;
• restored or upgraded water and sanitation systems at hospitals in Baghdad, Missan, Basra, Dohuk and Erbil, with a total capacity of some 2,000 beds (al Iskan paediatric hospital, al Karama teaching hospital, al Yarmouk teaching hospital, al Rashad psychiatric hospital and the neurosurgical hospital in Baghdad, al Mijer Hospital in Missan, al Sadr Teaching Hospital in Basra, Akra Hospital in Dohuk and Erbil Teaching Hospital);
• started construction of a maternity section at Sheikhan hospital, Nainawa governorate.

Water and sanitation

The ICRC pursued its efforts to respond to the needs of affected resident and displaced communities who faced constant water shortages due to violence, population movements and dilapidated infrastructure.

Examples of ICRC operations in 2006:

Water supply

• emergency repair work on around 30 water-supply and sewage facilities in a dozen governorates serving more than 2 million people (Baghdad, al Anbar, Diyala, Nainawa, Tamim, Erbil, Babil, Najaf, Diwaniyah, Wasit and Basra);
• restoration of production capacity at three major water-treatment and supply plants, serving more than 1.16 million people (al Mouhad and al Bradiyeh plants and the R-Zero water-supply station in Basra);
• re-installing gravity water-supply networks in remote villages of the Qandil mountains, serving 4,000 beneficiaries; and completed rehabilitation work on the water supply networks of Jesma village in Tamim governorate and Khailik on the Turkish border, serving a total of 6,000 people
• Restored water supply systems serving 100,000 inhabitants and hundreds of IDPs families in Talafar surrounding villages in Nainawa governorate

Sanitation & habitat

• construction or renovation of sanitary facilities at three camps housing 10,700 displaced people in Dohuk, Basra and Anbar governorates;
• repair of sewage system in Makmoor camp (Nainawa governorate), housing 13,000 refugees, and replaced shelter material for 350 displaced people in Al Tanf refugee camp on the Iraqi-Syrian border:

Water distribution

• trucking drinking water daily to some 3,000 displaced people in Baghdad's Sadr City, to 6,500 IDPs in three villages in Nainawa governorate and to 600 IDPs in Malak Shah Camp in Diyala governorate;
• trucking water daily to Al Yarmouk and Al Imam Ali hospitals in Baghdad (total capacity: 1,385 beds);
• producing over 600,000 one-litre water bags for local distribution during religious processions or at Baghdad hospitals taking in casualties;

Cooperation with the Iraqi Red Crescent

In 2006, the ICRC strengthened its cooperation with the IRCS, to respond more effectively to the growing humanitarian needs. It signed an agreement with the society, covering assistance, tracing activities and dissemination of the Red Cross and Red Crescent fundamental principles.

Under the assistance agreement, the ICRC dispatched thousands of food parcels, hygiene kits, blankets, kitchen sets and jerrycans to various Red Crescent branches across the country for distribution to people affected by the violence. It also gave the IRCS logistical support.

The Red Crescent remained the ICRC's main partner in ensuring contacts between members of separated families. In the health sector, the ICRC and the IRCS launched health and hygiene projects in four locations in Dohuk and Basra governorates. The ICRC continued assisting the IRCS mine awareness and promotion programmes, through training as well as financial and technical support.


Promoting humanitarian law and principles

Throughout 2006, the ICRC continued to raise awareness of both international humanitarian law (IHL) and independent and neutral humanitarian action among different sectors of the Iraqi population; these included political and religious leaders, government officials, NGOs and academics/students.

The ICRC also continued to voice its concerns about the humanitarian situation in Iraq and violations of IHL. Some 20 Iraqi journalists were invited to workshops focusing on the importance of IHL in media reporting.