Baghdad, 7 March 2014 –In its continued efforts to scale up humanitarian assistance to the displaced and stranded families affected by the ongoing military operations in Anbar Province, United Nations humanitarian convoys started reaching this week Amariyat Al-Fallujah, a region it had difficulty to access so far.
Yesterday, UNICEF started the distribution of drinking water, Water and Sanitation Supplies (WASH), goods and commodities in Amiriyat Al-Fallujah, where 1,000 litres x 6 water storage tanks benefitting 1,000 individuals were provided and installed. It also provided 144,000 litres of safe drinking water to 1,000 individual beneficiaries in Heet and Al Qaim. In addition, 72 prefabricated latrines benefitting 2,000 individuals were provided and installed in Heet, Haditha, A’anah and Rawa. For its part, UNHCR delivered 75 tents to Amiriyat Al-Fallujah and 40 tents to Heet.
During the past week:
•UNHCR distributed 800 CRIs to western Fallujah, 200 Core Relief Item (CRI) kits in Suleiman Bek (Salah-Al-Din) and 660 CRI kits in Heet (260 in Mohammadi, 200 in Baghdadi, and 200 in Kubaisa) bringing its total distributed kits to date to 4,122 CRIs.
•WFP delivered 1,500 food parcels to Ramadi and 650 food parcels in Amiriyat Al-Fallujah, bringing the total number of food parcels distributed to date in Anbar to 7,300.
•IOM Iraq distributed 530 non-food items (NFIs) in Amiriyat Al-Fallujah, bringing the total NFIs distributed to date in Anbar to 5,210.
“Establishing safe passage for humanitarian aid workers and delivery of critical humanitarian assistance must remain a priority”, said the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Iraq (SRSG), Mr. Nickolay Mladenov. He added “the United Nations continues to engage Government of Iraq officials and other interlocutors in an effort to calm tensions and prevent further escalation of armed conflict, as well as to identify needs of affected populations and ways of addressing them”.