Plastic tarps protect against wind and rain but not against cold

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Two girls huddle in the cold November breeze. One is in her bare feet, the other wears ill-fitted sandals and stockings. They pay little notice to the chill in the air. Instead, the children are consumed with a piece of old twine that they are using in a game of cat’s cradle. 

Last spring, Zareh, 7, passed into grade two, at her school in Nineveh province. Displaced by the ongoing conflict, she now lives with her extended family in a tent in Dohuk.

“We do nothing. There is no school,” she says. “We play with whatever we find. We have no other toys.”

 “We play with whatever we find. We have no other toys,” says Zareh, 7.

Gunmen destroyed their toys.

But, while children miss their toys, their parents recognize the more immediate needs— shoes, jackets and blankets—items that will keep their children warm, as temperatures dip in northern Iraq.

“It’s been very cold,” says Misreh, 30, who lives under stitched pieces of plastic sheeting with 15 others in her family. “The baby cries all night. It is too cold for him. He doesn’t sleep until morning,” she says.

“The baby cries all night. It is too cold for him. He doesn’t sleep until morning,” says Misreh, 30.

Her baby, Perwas, is 6 months old. She worries that winter will bring a greater chance of illness, especially for the young and the elderly. “We’re concerned that the children and the elderly, those most vulnerable, will face even greater health risks when the snow comes,” says Ashraf Yacoub, response manager for World Vision in Iraq. “We’re trying to fill gaps; distributing tarps, rope, blankets and mattresses,” he says. “But the needs are great and time is short.”. 

More than 1.9 million have been displaced in Iraq, and 600,000 of them are in desperate need of winterization assistance, among them, families like Misreh’s.“Temperatures have already begun to drop, and heavy rains have wrought havoc for people living in tents or exposed building sites,” Yacoub says.

 

Meanwhile, Misreh points to the worn pieces of tarp, either found or donated, that the family has tied to posts with twine, in an effort to build a stronger fortress against the wind and rain.  But, plastic sheets offer only minimal protection against the winter. “This nylon tarp isn’t enough to keep us warm,” she explains, cradling Perwas, the youngest of her six children.

World Vision is distributing tarps, blankets, carpets, mattresses, rope, and jerry cans to families in this informal settlement, an old vegetable market, on the outskirts of Dohuk city. 

Families fled here after conflict consumed their cities in neighbouring Nineveh province.

Misreh describes their escape from armed groups following attacks on Sinjar district where she and tens of thousands of people belonging to the Yazidi ethnic minority lived.  “We ran as soon as the fighting started,” she says. “We walked for days—all the way from our village to the mountains, then to Syria. I don’t remember how long we walked,” she says. “[It was] too long.”

She carried Perwas, then only three months, while her husband, Haider, carried their 11-year-old son Zaniar, on his back. Zaniar was born with cerebral palsy and is unable to walk.

 

Nodding her head towards one of the smaller children, holding fast to her dress, Misreh says, “That’s Angelie. She is only 18 months old, but she walked too, like the rest of us. There was no one to carry her,” she explains

“We saw some people leave their children behind,” she says, shaking her head. “They were not able to continue.”

 “We saw some people leave their children behind,” says Misreh.

Zanier has a makeshift wheelchair, donated to the family by the local community. To pass the time, he gives rides on it to the other children. He is popular among the youth, evidenced by the crowd that usually surrounds him, playing happily. 

But, it is growing colder and soon the harsh winter will bring heavy snows and temperatures well below freezing. The children, with no winter jackets, many without shoes, will not be playing outdoors.  “We left home with only the clothes we were wearing,” Misreh sighs. They have only what neighbours have donated.  

The plastic tarps are the only home they have now, but they recognize even this space leaves them vulnerable, to weather, and to fire, too.  “We do a lot of our cooking inside. I know it’s not safe because the tent is plastic. But there’s too much wind outside, and with the winter coming, it’s easier to cook inside despite the dangers,” she says. 

You can support the work World Vision is doing to help children like Zareh, Perwas, Zaniar and Angelie Click Here.