Baghdad Church Shelters: Frightened Neighbors Under The Roof, Spaghetti In The Cupboard And A Well In The Yard

Amman, Jordan, March 27, 2003 — A string of churches in Baghdad have emergency wells out in their yards and neighbors sleeping under their roofs. The local relief net, in preparation for months, is getting busier by the night as civilians cope with an intensifying war.

"More people are now coming to the churches at night hoping that it may be safer to sleep there," a Middle East Council of Churches representative reported today from the Iraqi capital. "Both Christians and Muslims are coming. In one church I know of, 150 people are sleeping there and in another 80." MECC is a Lutheran World Relief partner organization.

"Today, I have distributed canned fish, spaghetti, juice and about 300 blankets to the centers and churches and tomorrow we'll distribute more things," the MECC worker said in a phone call to the Jordan office of Action by Churches Together, an aid alliance that includes LWR. Church volunteers have stocked 52 parish relief centers in four Iraqi cities with bedding and food and supplied water tanks to go with freshly dug wells. ACT members support the work.

"Food is becoming scarce in the markets and the prices are going up. It is very difficult to find transport now, because of the danger of moving about but we're still succeeding," he said.

"When the bombing starts, my own son and daughter are terrified. They cry and cry and I can see the fear in my son's face. He does not want to eat and he holds his hands to his ears to try to keep the sounds of the bombs out. He's doing that right now because they have just started bombing again," he told Nils Carstensen of ACT. "You can hear it."