Supporting the health of children who’ve escaped conflict
It’s 50 degrees centigrade in Nazrawa, a sprawling camp for displaced Iraqis outside Kirkuk, a large northern city just outside lines of conflict. The wind is blowing, so it’s dusty as well as hot. There are only a few people walking on the wide streets, and many have their faces completely covered to protect themselves from the harsh conditions.
The camp was established in November 2015, and now provides shelter to more than 4,500 Iraqis who fled conflict in nearby areas. Many more are expected to arrive in the coming weeks and months.
One shady spot in the camp is the primary health clinic. It consists of several caravans arranged in a square. The courtyard is protected by a canopy where children, women and men wait for help.
With a generous contribution from the Unicef UK National Committee, UNICEF Iraq supports a number of activities at the clinic and in the camp, including growth monitoring and nutrition supplementation for children under five-years-old, and providing vaccinations for children against measles, polio and other diseases. UNICEF-supported health teams also go door-to-door in the camp to ensure that every child has been immunized, and to monitor the health of newborns and their mothers.
Hakima has brought her daughter Ghufran to the medical centre for evaluation. They made the journey to the safety of the camp just over a month ago.
“We came to the camp by foot,” she says. “We walked for 13 hours to get here. There were about 150 of us. We have disabled family members and we had to carry them. The border area was very risky, and we were worried about mines.”
Most of the families in Nazrawa are from the same area. Having lived in a city outside of government control for almost two years, the children are behind on their vaccinations — or have missed them altogether.
Ghufran is 9 months old and as well as suffering from anemia and malnutrition, she had never been immunised. The UNICEF team has evaluated her, started her vaccination programme, and given her supplemental food supplies.
Across the courtyard, Sultan, another camp resident, has brought his children in to be weighed and measured in the growth monitoring room.
UNICEF-supported teams conducted a nutrition assessment in the camp last month and are now following up. Those with serious malnutrition are referred to a nutrition rehabilitation center in Kirkuk. Most of the children are in reasonably good health and are provided with high energy biscuits, which supplement their diet.
“I’m very satisfied with this care,” Sultan says. “And for those who don’t have income it’s good because it’s free.”
Outside in the searing heat, Samir and Thamir, health workers in the camp, go door-to-door, finding children who need vaccinations. They stop in the shade of a building to administer the life-saving injections.
“My job is beautiful,” says Thamir. “It’s the best thing.”
Last month alone, health teams provided oral polio vaccine along with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines to nearly six hundred children in the camp.
In the shade of a communal kitchen in the middle of the camp, Rajaa, who recently arrived with her family, has brought her children for their second round of vaccinations. “We’ve been living in the camp for six weeks,” she says. “It took us 15 hours to get here, walking through the night.”
That journey is likely to be repeated for many more families in the coming weeks. And while they will have found safety in Nazrawa, a two-year gap in immunization against diseases like polio represents a serious threat to public health. UNICEF is preparing the supplies and medical staff to receive new arrivals and prevent the outbreak of life-threatening diseases among children who’ve already suffered too much.
Chris Niles is a Consultant with UNICEF Iraq.
For direct donations to UNICEF in Iraq: http://support.unicef.org/campaign/donate-children-iraq
