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Food poisoning at Iraqi refugee camp kills two and leaves hundreds ill Food poisoning at Iraqi refugee camp kills two and leaves hundreds ill
(about 3 hours later)
At least two people have been killed and hundreds are undergoing treatment after a mass food poisoning at a camp for displaced people near the Iraqi city of Mosul. Contaminated food has killed at least two people and made around 750 others sick at a camp for Iraqi civilians who have fled fighting against Islamic State in Mosul, UN agencies have said.
“There are 752 cases of food poisoning and two death, a woman and a child” following a meal on Monday night, Iraqi health ministry spokesman Seif al-Badr said. A fleet of ambulances and buses raced overnight to the Hasansham U2 camp, home to more than 6,000 people. They took more than 200 of the most severely ill to hospitals in the regional capital, Erbil, and other big cities.
About 100 of those affected required critical hospital treatment after the iftar meal, which breaks the dawn-to-dusk fast during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. About 600 others were treated at the camp, which houses people who left their homes to escape the battle against Isis for control of Mosul city, the extremists’ last major Iraqi stronghold.
The food, provided by a non-governmental organisation, consisted of rice, a bean sauce, meat, yoghurt and water, according to Raad al-Dahlaki, who chairs the Iraqi parliament’s immigration and displacement committee and who visited the camp overnight. A woman and a child died overnight, Iraqi doctors told the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Television images showed listless children and adults hooked up to IV drips for severe dehydration, some apparently doubled over in pain from stomach cramps.
The outbreak occurred at Hasansham U2 camp, located about 20km (13 miles) east of Mosul. It houses more than 6,000 people who fled their homes after a US-backed Iraqi offensive was launched to dislodge Islamic State from the city last October, according to the UN. They all fell ill after eating an evening meal from a local restaurant, supplied to break the daytime fast observed by Muslims in the holy month of Ramadan. It was paid for by a Qatari charity and included chicken, beans, rice, yoghurt and soup, local officials said.
The UN’s refugee agency said at least one child had died as a result of the food poisoning and that 200 people needed hospital treatment. “Extra clean water is now being provided at the camp and additional health agencies have been brought in to help in the response,” the agency said. Iraqi police are investigating the incident, according to the UN’s refugee agency, which runs the camp. They are understood to be looking at whether the food was contaminated before arriving at the camp, or after delivery.
“We are waiting for the police investigations to understand clearly the chain of events and to draw lessons from this tragic incident which will allow agencies to reinforce public health protocols to prevent such situations in the future,” it said. “We are waiting for the police investigations to understand clearly the chain of events and to draw lessons from this tragic incident … to prevent such situations in the future,” the agency said in a statement. Extra clean water and medical help had been brought in, it added.
More than 800,000 people have been forced to flee their homes since a huge operation against Isis in one of their last strongholds in Iraq was launched in October 2016. The camp, 20 miles outside Mosul, was opened in May to house the latest wave of people made homeless by the fighting.
Many of them live in overcrowded camps, where soaring summer temperatures are compounding the difficulties faced by the government and the UN in maintaining acceptable living conditions. More than 700,000 civilians are thought to have fled the months-long battle to reclaim Iraq’s second city from militant control, although some are slowly returning to areas in the east of the city.
Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, fell to Isis in the summer of 2014 as the militants swept over much of the country’s northern and western areas. Weeks later, the head of the extremist group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, announced the formation of a self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria from the pulpit of a Mosul mosque. The UN has said up to 200,000 more could leave as Isis fighters are pinned into shrinking territory and the fighting intensifies.
Months after the start of the Iraqi offensive, Isis militants now only control a handful of neighbourhoods in and around the old city west of the river Tigris that divides Mosul. Many of the camps designed to house the refugees are already overcrowded, with conditions made worse by the fierce summer heat. Both funds and personnel are stretched thin, and the United Nations and the Iraqi government are struggling to maintain acceptable living standards.
AFP contributed to this report Charities had been banned from bringing food from outside into the camp where the food poisoning occurred, camp supervisor Rizgar Obed told local Rudaw news agency, but the rule was relaxed because of the scale of the crisis.