IRAQ: Food supplies affected by security checks at Syrian border

[leftchick]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/49674461074ccc66a99d5735e25e3811.htm


BAGHDAD, 7 March (IRIN) - Food supplies in Iraq are being disrupted as hundreds of trucks carrying fresh and canned food have been unable to cross the Iraqi-Syrian border for more than two weeks, after the interim government imposed tighter controls to prevent insurgency, officials said.

The Iraqi government has practically closed the border for security reasons, alleging that Syrian officials were not stopping insurgents from entering the country, which they say worsened after the killing of the former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri on 14 February. Damascus agreed on Monday to withdraw Syrian troops from the country.

Lines of trucks stretching kilometres can be seen at the Syrian border. Fresh food has started to go off inside the trunks and drivers say they and the companies they are working for are facing huge losses. Some returned back to Damascus, the Syrian capital after the food they were carried had spoiled.

<snip>

The slowdown is also affecting food security in the country. According to a recent World Food Programme (WFP) report, the border closure has delayed the import of some food commodities into Iraq and there are significant countrywide shortfalls in ghee (purified butter), sugar and milk. Some governorates reported a serious lack of nearly every Public Distribution System (PDS) service, the annual monthly food ration that most Iraqis receive

[Wwagsthedog]

1. Using this logic, we should stop all truck traffic into the US from Mexico

Hypocrisy are US. 'nuf said.

[bemildred]

2. Another "brilliant" move to stop the insurgency. nt

[Tempest]

3. What a waste

U.S. commanders have already admitted there are very few foreigners in the insurgency and few Iraqis are entering the country to fight.

So what does Bush do? Wastes resources by creating an imaginary problem and throwing troops at it.

[malachi]

4. Just another bullshit lie to justify attacking Syria. What's next,

Syrians wear too much fur? Syrians consuming too much air?

[Moderator]

5. kick to combine

[chlamor]

6. IRAQ: Food Supplies Affected by Security Checks at Syrian Border

IRAQ: Food supplies affected by security checks at Syrian border
07 Mar 2005 15:21:18 GMT
Source: IRIN

BAGHDAD, 7 March (IRIN) - Food supplies in Iraq are being disrupted as hundreds of trucks carrying fresh and canned food have been unable to cross the Iraqi-Syrian border for more than two weeks, after the interim government imposed tighter controls to prevent insurgency, officials said.

Lines of trucks stretching kilometres can be seen at the Syrian border. Fresh food has started to go off inside the trunks and drivers say they and the companies they are working for are facing huge losses. Some returned back to Damascus, the Syrian capital after the food they were carried had spoiled.

<snip>

Some 6.5 million people, 25 percent of the entire population, remain highly dependent on food rations and are therefore vulnerable, according to the WFP's baseline food security assessment, the first of its kind in Iraq and released in May 2004.

Just under half of that figure are so poor that they have to resell part of their food rations to buy basic necessities such as medicine and clothes. A further 3.6 million Iraqis, 14 percent of the population, would become food insecure if the rationing system were discontinued.

<snip>


But Iraqis believe that the security measures taken at the border are causing havoc in daily life. "At the same time that they close the borders they are also decreasing our good relations with Syria. People here are dying, in need of food and food is being lost at the border, it's not right," Labiba Hussein, a mother of two from Fallujah, told IRIN.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/49674461074ccc66a99d5735e25e3811.htm

[sacxtra]

7. Did the water and electricity ever get restored yet? n/t

[madrchsod]

8. starvation

cheaper than bombs and bullets

[gordianot]

9. I wonder if they treat insurgents at checkpoints as well as they......

treat kidnapped journalists?