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A doctor measures a baby at the MSF-supported primary healthcare centre in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul.

West Mosul MSF has started to provide life-saving trauma assistance for the war-wounded at a medical structure in the Old City of west Mosul, the final conflict area, where an estimated 60,000 residents remain.

Teams are carrying out surgery for war-wounded patients, performing emergency caesarean sections, and providing short-term post-operative care and maternity care. The facility in Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, is equipped with an emergency room and a mass casualty intake room for triage in case of an influx of wounded patients.

Emergency and Post Operative Care, Al Taheel At Al Taheel hospital, where MSF opened a 24/7 emergency room on 26 March, a surgical unit and 32-bed post-operative ward have been set up to provide medium-term care to patients in and around Mosul suffering from violent trauma injuries.

The emergency room has received more than 1,000 patients since it opened and more than 175 surgical interventions have been carried out.

Al-Khansaa Teaching Hospital, East Mosul MSF has just started supporting this Ministry of Health facility in the Al-Sukkar neighbourhood, which has suffered extensive damage during the conflict. The hospital currently has a 120-bed capacity to respond to the massive needs in Mosul. Mental health support is to be provided to all patients.

Maternal Health, Karama MSF opened a 15-bed maternity hospital in Karama, east Mosul on 19 March. The team, composed of international and Iraqi midwives and obstetricians, has assisted 376 births at the hospital, which is open 24/7.

Trauma care and primary healthcare, Hammam al-Alil Hammam al-Alil (known as HAA) is located 30 kilometres south of Mosul and is the closest camp for internally displaced people. The town has received a big influx of displaced people, with more arriving daily to be settled in different camps and with many in transit as they return to east Mosul.

MSF opened a field trauma hospital in HAA on 16 February. It is equipped with a 22-bed emergency room, two operating theatres, a seven-bed intensive care unit/recovery room and a 32-bed inpatient department. Between 19 February and 10 June, the emergency room received 3,144 patients, 56 per cent of whom were women and children. To date, the team has performed 305 major surgical procedures and 67 minor procedures. The majority of cases are emergency surgeries.

Since April 15, MSF has also supported the local department of healths primary healthcare centre in Hamman Al-Alil town. More than 18,000 consultations for the host population and the internally displaced were carried out by 10 June.

MSF has run an ambulatory therapeutic feeding centre for children suffering from acute malnutrition since June. The majority of patients come from two nearby camps for internationally displaced people. Psychosocial support is offered to the patients in the trauma centre and primary healthcare centre.

Post-operative and rehabilitation care, Al Hamdaniya At Al Hamdaniya hospital, MSF has provided post-operative care with rehabilitation and psychosocial support in collaboration with Handicap International since 15 March. Of the 255 patients admitted to date, nearly half have been women and children, and the 43-bed facility is almost constantly full. A room for advanced dressings, where minor surgical procedures can be performed, is expected to open in the next few days.

A child is tested for malnutrition in the triage tent of the MSF-supported primary healthcare centre in Hammam al-Alil.

By 1 June, the team had treated 7,100 patients in the emergency room, around 10 per cent of whom were admitted to the inpatient department. A total of 1,350 surgical interventions were performed between December and 1 June. A four-bed intermediate care unit, opened in mid-April to provide care to patients in critical condition, has been equipped with seven observational beds and two resuscitation beds.

MSF set up a 12-bed intensive therapeutic feeding centre in March to provide care to children recently displaced from west Mosul or Shirqat Region, as well as those from camps for displaced people in Hammam al-Alil and Qayyarah. In May, 178 patients were admitted, including 91 infants under six months old. The centre works regularly over capacity, with as many as three babies per bed. Since February, MSF has run a mental health clinic for patients in the hospital and those referred from Qayyarah camps. The team consists of a psychiatrist, two psychologists and two psychosocial counsellors.

Camps for internally displaced people The population of four camps for displaced people from Mosul sharply increased to 80,000 by the end of March following the mid-February offensive in west Mosul. Some 10,000 people have since left the camps to stay with relatives or rent houses in retaken areas of east Mosul.

In Chamakor and M2 camps, MSF mobile teams are offering treatment for chronic diseases (mainly diabetes and hypertension).

An MSF team is providing psychological and psychiatric consultations, group therapy, psychosocial counselling and child therapy to people suffering from moderate to severe mental health conditions.

Since the beginning of 2017, MSF teams providing mental healthcare in 13 sites have carried out more than 19,400 medical consultations and 12,200 mental health consultations in the camps near Mosul.

MSF teams are also working in Kirkuk, Dohuk, Sulaymaniyah, Salah Al-Din, Diyala, Al-Anbar, Baghdad and Babylon governorates.

Kirkuk governorate Teams are providing medical and mental health services to people displaced from Hawija. MSF runs a non-communicable diseases clinic and mental health activities, including referrals for psychiatric care in Daquq camp for displaced people. At Maktab Khalid entry point and Debes screening site, MSFs medical and humanitarian presence through the provision of mobile clinics ensures that the people with the greatest health needs fleeing Hawija receive timely treatment. MSF also supports the emergency rooms of the two main Kirkuk hospitals with training for Department of Health doctors and nurses in emergency room-related skills, donations of crash carts, and trauma room reorganisation.

Zummar Staff at the MSF-run maternity clinic in the village of Tal Maraq have assisted more than 500 safe deliveries since the start of the project in November 2016. The clinic offers pre- and post-natal consultations, basic emergency obstetric and neonatal care, manages minor obstetric complications, and refers patients with more serious obstetric complications to hospitals in Zakho and Dohuk. Since February, the clinic has a small paediatric ward.

MSF teams run mobile clinics in surrounding villages offering general healthcare and mental health consultations, as well as follow up and treatment for patients with non-communicable diseases.

Dohuk governorate In the Domiz refugee camp for Syrian refugees, MSF is running a maternity unit where women can deliver their babies safely and access reproductive healthcare. Since January 2016, MSF teams have assisted more than 1,000 births.

Sulaymaniyah Governorate MSF works with the health authorities in Sulaymaniyah emergency hospital and provides hands-on training to improve the quality of medical services in the intensive care unit and emergency trauma ward. The rehabilitation of the emergency room and intensive care unit wards has improved layouts and patient flows. Since the start of the project, staff have seen more than 200,000 patients in the emergency room and over 500 in the intensive care unit.

MSF has worked in camps for internally displaced people in the governorate since 2015, conducting health promotion activities and providing psychological and psychosocial care.

Salah Al-Din governorate As military operations expand in northwestern Iraq, thousands of Iraqis continue to flock to relatively safer areas. Since June 2016, MSFs mobile clinics have offered outpatient and mental health consultations in the city of Tikrit and the surrounding areas. In January 2017 MSF established a primary healthcare centre in one of the camps.

Diyala governorate Since May 2016, approximately 100,000 displaced people have returned to the towns of Sadiya and Jalawla, which were retaken from the Islamic State group. MSF supports the primary healthcare clinics in Sadiya and Jalawla, focusing on chronic diseases, sexual and reproductive health, maternity, mental health and health promotion services for displaced people, returnees and the host community.

MSFs field trauma hospital in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul.

Baghdad Governorate MSF teams in Abu Ghraib provide medical and mental health services to people displaced from central Iraq. A mobile medical team operates in impoverished neighbourhoods in the Abu Ghraib district, where many displaced people have settled in the past two years. A second team, based in a primary healthcare clinic in the Al Shuhada II area, is assessing the needs of thousands of people who were displaced and are now returning to their homes in villages in northern Abu Ghraib and Karma district in Anbar. In 2017, MSF has so far provided over 12,700 consultations, more than 2,300 consultations for non-communicable diseases and over 450 mental health consultations.

Babylon Governorate Since spring 2017, MSF has been fully supporting the 60-bed Ibn Saif Paediatric Hospital in Musayib. The team will concentrate on capacity-building, training and logistics support. Psychosocial services are to be supported at the hospital and within the community.

Read more from the original source:
Iraq: crisis update 29 June 2017 | Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF ... - Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF) International

After 18 months covering the battle against Islamic State fighters in northern Iraq, Emilienne Malfatto felt compelled to show a less-violent side of the war-torn nation. And she found one in Chibayish, a small district in the Mesopotamian marshes.

When you say Iraq, people just think war: the two wars in Baghdad or bombings, Ms. Malfatto said. But you also have this beautiful place with beautiful people. Its like another face of Iraq.

The marshlands, comprising a nearly 8,000-square-mile area, are at the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Their denizens, the Madan also known as the Marsh Arabs live free from threats posed elsewhere by ISIS and militias.

She had first journeyed to Chibayish in late 2016, going alone to develop rapport and trust with members of the community. She benefited both from her command of the language and by being female. Women were quick to embrace and engage her, Ms. Malfatto said, explaining that a male stranger would not elicit that same quick trust or openness.

People were really willing to open up, said Ms. Malfatto, who extolled the Madans remarkable hospitality. She forged strong bonds with several families who offered shelter in their reed houses, provided food and arranged boat rides into the marshes, which she described as having a mythical quality. She also made sure to be respectful of their conservative customs.

I am absolutely not a religious person, and I am quite fascinated by faith as an object of study, she said. In particular, she was struck by the levity that accompanied daily prayer, and by the way such worship was integrated into everyday moments. She hopes her portrayal of Muslims will be a counterbalance to the current stigmatization of Islam in political debate and the media.

The families gave Ms. Malfatto intimate access to everyday life in the marshes, including a family eating a breakfast of fresh buffalo milk, sugary tea and homemade bread; boat drivers piloting along murky waters; and portraits of Madan women with well-worn faces and hands.

The last few decades have brought changes to the Iraqi marshlands. Once, they had been a tourist destination, home to a variety of wildlife. But in the 1990s, Saddam Hussein drained the marshlands in an attempt to flush out Shiite rebels who had fled there after the Persian Gulf war of 1991.

After U.S. forces toppled Husseins regime in 2003, the Madan returned to the marshes, destroying the dams and dikes that had been constructed. Water again flowed through the area, once more allowing vegetation and livestock to thrive.

However, threats to the marshlands remain, a result of climate change and dam construction on the rivers. Rising temperatures have led to large amounts of water evaporation. Construction of newer dams upriver in Turkey, where the headwaters of the Tigris and the Euphrates are located, has also reduced the rivers flow.

Twice in the last 10 years in 2008 and in 2015 those conditions led to the marshes nearly vanishing. Its likely they will dry up yet again, perhaps this time for good. And though Iraq is still grappling with ISIS and war recovery, Ms. Malfatto hopes that the threat to the Madan and their livelihood will not go ignored.

Iraq has other problems, she said. Maybe they think they have more important stuff to deal with. On the other hand, they cannot let this part of the country die.

Follow @emalfatto and @nytimesphoto on Twitter. You can also find Lens on Facebook and Instagram.

See the rest here:
In the Marshlands, 'Another Face of Iraq' - New York Times (blog)

Trudeau said: Its also something to be understood as being entirely consistent with what Canada is expected to be doing as part of the coalition against Daesh. Photograph: Canadian Press`/Rex/Shutterstock

A record-shattering lethal shot fired by a Canadian sniper in Iraq has reignited a longstanding debate over Canadas role in the region, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau telling reporters it was entirely consistent with the countrys non-combat mission and should be celebrated.

Last week, the defence department confirmed reports that a Canadian sniper had shot an Isis militant from 3,540 metres (2 miles) away. The shot surpassed the previous world military record for the longest confirmed kill held by a British sniper who took aim at a Taliban fighter in 2009 by more than a kilometre.

Officials said the sniper was a member of the Canadian militarys elite counter-terrorism unit. The shot was fired last month after Canadian snipers noticed that Isis fighters were poised to ambush Iraqi security forces, according to the Globe and Mail.

The news rekindled a long running debate based on a 2015 campaign promise by the Liberals, led by Trudeau, to end Canadas combat mission in Iraq.

Months after sweeping into power, they said they were doing just that; pulling Canadas six fighter jets out of the US-led coalition against Islamic State and instead putting roughly 200 special forces troops on the ground to support Kurdish forces in Iraq.

But questions as to what exactly this support entails have continued to plague the Liberals, particularly after Gen Jonathan Vance, Canadas chief of defence staff, told a parliamentary committee in November that Canadian troops have been allowed to fire first against Isis militants. We dont have to be shot at first, he said. We can take the first shot if it is to save lives.

The recent news of the sniper casts further doubt on the governments assertion, said Tom Mulcair, leader of the New Democratic party, last week. Has your definition of combat changed since forming government? Mulcair asked in a letter to Trudeau, adding: Canadians deserve no less than to know the true extent of our involvement in Iraq.

Reporters put those concerns to Trudeau on Tuesday. The prime minister began by addressing the kill shot. What happened there is, first of all, something to be celebrated for the excellence of the Canadian forces in their training, in the performance of their duties, he said. But its also something to be understood as being entirely consistent with what Canada is expected and Canadians expect our forces to be doing as part of the coalition against Daesh.

The sniper had been defending Iraqi and Kurdish forces when he took the shot, said Trudeau. The advise-and-assist mission that our forces are engaged in in northern Iraq has always had an element of defence of, obviously, Canadian troops and of our coalition partners.

Mulcair said he remained unconvinced. You cant have people shooting people to death on the frontlines and still claim this is not a combat mission, he told the Globe and Mail.

He said he was surprised to hear the prime ministers view on the sniper. It is certainly not part of my values to say that we should be celebrating the death of a human being, no matter what the circumstances.

The renewed debate comes just days before the mandate guiding Canadas mission to Iraq is set to expire. The Liberal government is expected to announce either an extension or changes to the mission shortly.

Originally posted here:
Sniper's record kill shot in Iraq 'should be celebrated', Trudeau says - The Guardian

WARREN, Mich. (WXYZ) - A Warren woman is in the fight of her life because every day could be her last.

Thirty-eight-year-old Mirvet Bahoura is battling a rare auto-immune disease, which requires daily medication - and a bone marrow transplant at any given moment.

In something most, would call a miracle, Mirvet found a match in her 55-year-old uncle, Ghassan Kassab.

He's already saved her life, not once but twice.

But on June 11th, a routine visit to ice, turned into a nightmare, which could be a matter of life and death for them both.

Kassab was detained because of his past criminal record and is now being held behind bars in Arizona, with the threat of being deported back to Iraq.

So now, her uncle -- her donor and lifesaver is gone.

"He's not here to provide and then I have to be put on a waiting list and that can take years and years and especially like with Mediterranean, Middle Eastern it's hard to find a match like that," says Mirvet Bahoura, tearfully.

Kassab did have a drug conviction two decades ago, and a DUI conviction almost 10 years ago.

According to a court of law, he has paid his debt to society.

Kassab has been in this country since he was 6-years-old and does not want to return to Iraq.

Mervit and her family have been working with CODE Legal Aid. They have helped them to secure legal counsel, with hope of bringing their case before the immigration court and bring her uncle back home.

See the article here:
Man facing deportation to Iraq is only available donor for his ill niece - WXYZ

ISTANBUL Turkish forces retaliated with an artillery barrage overnight and destroyed Kurdish YPG militia targets after the group's fighters opened fire on Turkey-backed forces in northern Syria, the military said on Wednesday.

It said Turkish warplanes separately struck Kurdish militants in northern Iraq on Wednesday, killing seven fighters from the PKK group which Ankara says is closely linked to the YPG.

The strikes came after Turkey's defense minister warned that Ankara would retaliate against any threatening moves by the YPG and after reports that Turkey was reinforcing its military presence in northern Syria.

The United States supports the YPG in the fight against Islamic State in Syria, while NATO ally Turkey regards them as terrorists indistinguishable from militants from the outlawed PKK which is carrying out an insurgency in southeast Turkey.

Turkey's army said YPG machine-gun fire on Tuesday evening targeted Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army elements in the Maranaz area south of the town of Azaz in northern Syria.

"Fire support vehicles in the region were used to retaliate in kind against the harassing fire and the identified targets were destroyed/neutralised," the military statement said.

The boom of artillery fire could be heard overnight from the Turkish border town of Kilis, broadcaster Haberturk said. It was not clear whether there were casualties in the exchange of fire.

Ankara was angered by a U.S. decision in June to arm the YPG in the battle for Islamic State's Raqqa stronghold. President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that nations which promised to get back weapons from the YPG once Islamic State were defeated were trying to trick Turkey.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Tuesday left open the possibility of longer-term assistance to the YPG, saying the U.S. may need to supply them weapons and equipment even after the capture of Raqqa.

Ankara considers the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is deemed a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

The PKK has carried out an armed insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and more than 40,000 people, most of them Kurds, have died in the fighting.

Turkish warplanes on Wednesday morning destroyed PKK shelters and gun positions during air strikes in the Avasin-Basyan area of northern Iraq, killing seven militants planning an attack on Turkish border outposts, an army statement said.

Faced with turmoil across its southern border, Turkey last year sent troops into Syria to support Free Syrian Army rebels fighting both Islamic State and Kurdish forces who control a large part of Syria's northern border region.

Erdogan has said Turkey would not flinch from taking tougher action against the YPG in Syria if Turkey believed it needed to.

(Reporting by Orhan Coskun, Tulay Karadeniz and Omer Berberoglu, Writing by Daren Butler and David Dolan,; Editing by Ed Osmond and Richard Balmforth)

TOKYO An ally of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denied on Thursday receiving secret political donations from an educational institution at the core of a scandal over suspected favoritism that has sliced Abe's support ratings ahead of a key local poll.

SYDNEY/VATICAN CITY Australian police charged a top adviser to Pope Francis with multiple historical sex crimes on Thursday, in a case that poses a dilemma for a pontiff who has vowed zero tolerance for such offences.

Read more:
Turkey returns fire on YPG in Syria, warplanes hit militants in Iraq - Reuters