Drug Crimes Spike in Iraq’s Basra, Baghdad

Airport workers are seen at Basra airport after it was targeted by rocket fire in Basra, Iraq September 8, 2018. REUTERS/Essam al-Sudani
Airport workers are seen at Basra airport after it was targeted by rocket fire in Basra, Iraq September 8, 2018. REUTERS/Essam al-Sudani
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Drug Crimes Spike in Iraq’s Basra, Baghdad

Airport workers are seen at Basra airport after it was targeted by rocket fire in Basra, Iraq September 8, 2018. REUTERS/Essam al-Sudani
Airport workers are seen at Basra airport after it was targeted by rocket fire in Basra, Iraq September 8, 2018. REUTERS/Essam al-Sudani

Statistics put forth by the Supreme Judicial Council of Iraq show a spike in the number of defendants convicted of drug crimes in the first half of 2019. According to the Council’s bulletin, at least 6,842 convicts were jailed on charges involving drug abuse and dealership.

The report set Basra and Baghdad as the two top ranking cities in terms of drug crime.

These numbers are hardly surprising when compared to prevailing drug concerns in recent years, but they do indicate the country's desperate need for an effective action strategy to combat this scourge.

Last March, Prime Minister of Iraq Adil Abdul-Mahdi said: “Drugs are a big phenomenon that is expanding…(drugs) coming from Argentina to Arsal, Lebanon, and passing through Syria to enter Iraq and establish networks that exploit young people to earn tremendous money.”

As reported in the Council’s bulletin, Basra, a southern governorate near borders with Iran, witnessed a sweeping outbreak of drug crime whereby 870 preps were given sentences ranging 15 years to life imprisonment in the first six months of 2019 alone.

Most of these sentences have been passed on persons engaged in the trade or promotion of narcotics. Baghdad, with a staggering 676 convicts, ranked second after Basra.

“The phenomenon of drug abuse and trade affects Iraq in general, and Basra in particular—it has become a very serious societal dilemma, and no longer is confined to a certain age group, gender or any other category,” Basra-based Judge Riyadh Abdulabbass said.

“We are seeing a wide spectrum of people who descended to drug abuse, promotion and trafficking,” he added.

Abdulabbass blamed weak border security, especially in Basra, and a shortage in counterdrug task force members for the hike in successful drug trafficking operations.

According to the bulletin, Saladin Governorate, north of Baghdad, recorded the lowest number of people accused of drug cases during the first half of 2019 with only 11 convicted and 46 undergoing investigations for drug-related offenses.



Palestinians Get Food Aid in Central Gaza, Some for the First Time in Months

Donated flour is distributed to Palestinians at a UNRWA center in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024. (AP)
Donated flour is distributed to Palestinians at a UNRWA center in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024. (AP)
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Palestinians Get Food Aid in Central Gaza, Some for the First Time in Months

Donated flour is distributed to Palestinians at a UNRWA center in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024. (AP)
Donated flour is distributed to Palestinians at a UNRWA center in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024. (AP)

Palestinians lined up for bags of flour distributed by the UN in central Gaza on Tuesday morning, some of them for the first time in months amid a drop in food aid entering the territory.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, gave out one 25-kilogram flour bag (55 pounds) to each family of 10 at a warehouse in the Nuseirat refugee camp, as well as further south in the city of Khan Younis.

Jalal al-Shaer, among the dozens receiving flour at the Nuseirat warehouse, said the bag would last his family of 12 for only two or three days.

“The situation for us is very difficult,” said another man in line, Hammad Moawad. “There is no flour, there is no food, prices are high ... We eat bread crumbs.” He said his family hadn’t received a flour allotment in five or six months.

COGAT, the Israeli army body in charge of humanitarian affairs, said it facilitated entry of a shipment of 600 tons of flour on Sunday for the World Food Program. Still, the amount of aid Israel has allowed into Gaza since the beginning of October has been at nearly the lowest levels of the 15-month-old war.

UNRWA’s senior emergency officer Louise Wateridge told The Associated Press that the flour bags being distributed Tuesday were not enough.

“People are getting one bag of flour between an entire family and there is no certainty when they’ll receive the next food,” she said.

Wateridge added that UNRWA has been struggling like other humanitarian agencies to provide much needed supplies across the Gaza Strip. The agency this week announced it was stopping delivering aid entering through the main crossing from Israel, Kerem Shalom, because its convoys were being robbed by gangs. UNRWA has blamed Israel in large part for the spread of lawlessness in Gaza.

The International Criminal Court is seeking to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister over accusations of using “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid into Gaza. Israel rejects the allegations and says it has been working hard to improve entry of aid.