Three days after the settlement of a group of Ashraf residents stationed in Camp Liberty, it has become even clearer that contrary to the January 31st statement of UNAMI and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General as well as the shoddy report of a shelter expert on January 30th, the conditions of the camp is far away from international humanitarian standards and little doubt has been left that the relocation of residents to this camp has been a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.
1. Shortage of water and broken-down water supplying network is extremely troublesome. The volume of water the residents need on a daily basis is 120,000 liters. Due to extraordinarily filthiness and loathsome contamination of trailers and restrooms, the residents are in more need of water on the first days. This is while they can bring in the camp only some thousand liters of water by tankers with too much difficulty. In fact they have to use bottles of water for many of their cleansing purposes.
2. Half of the camp lacks any electricity. The capacity of the existing two generators is far less than the necessary electricity. There is another generator near the dining facility, but the Iraqi forces have refrained from delivering it to the residents. Previously, electricity used to be supplied to camp Liberty by the national power grid and used to have an 11kw transformer which was stolen after the U.S. forces delivered the camp to the Iraqis.
3. The camp is in a perilous hygienic condition. The cover of the septic tank used by police forces is in the middle of the area where the residents live and has extremely contaminated the area and is a serious threat to the health of the residents.
4. The septic tank used by the residents needs to be evacuated several times during the day to prevent contamination, but the Iraqi forces have said that since its system is American they do not have the necessary facilities for evacuation.
5. Most of restrooms are broken and unusable. Many of them have no water or the pipelines are out of order.
6. Contrary to what had been shown in the photos provided by UNAMI, the accommodation area does not meet minimum necessities by any means.
The Iranian Resistance asks the relevant authorities to explain why the presented reports and photos by UNAMI were so different from the realities? Who is responsible for that and what goals did such false reports pursue? Some photos of facilities and the interior area of Liberty are enclosed.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iraq
