One child dead, 800 ill after food poisoning in Mosul IDP camp

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – One child has died and some 800 internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Mosul in Hassansham U2 camp are suffering from food poisoning after a charity delivered food from an Erbil restaurant. 
 
Monday evening, a Qatari charity organization brought Iftar dinner for 2,000 IDPs breaking their Ramadan fast in the camp. 

Rizgar Obed, camp supervisor from the Barzani Charity Foundation, told Rudaw that between 800 and 900 people were affected. 

Saman Barzinji, the head of Erbil health department, told Rudaw that one child has died. He also said that they have recorded 752 cases, adding that the patients are treated in three different locations, including Khabat hospital, the closest hospital to the camp, about 30 km west of Erbil. 

The food was beans, rice, chicken, and a yogurt drink brought from a restaurant in Erbil. Most of those affected were children and elderly, complaining of vomiting and stomachache. 

 

Dr Hersh Qadir Barzinji  in Erbil who treated some of the patients told Rudaw that the symptoms included severe vomiting and dehydration. 

Erbil health directorate sent a special team and 30 ambulances to the camp, bringing the most severe cases to hospitals in Erbil and Khabat. 

Obed said that they had previously banned outside organizations from bringing food to the camp , but that they changed the regulations after they were "under great pressure."

Nabaz Abdulhamid, Erbil mayor, told Rudaw that the restaurant owner has been arrested after the incident. 

 

Kurdistan's hhealth minister Rekawt Hama Rashhid and Erbil governor Nawzad Hadi visited some of the patients in an Erbil hospital. 

The minister told Rudaw that 40 ambulances were dispatched to the camp to transfer those affected to nearby hospitals in Khabat and in Erbil hospital.

Governor Hadi said that the food was takeaway from the restaurant, though the regulations are that any food should be cooked inside the camp where there are big kitchens. 

 

The camp, which was opened by the UN refugee agency UNHCR in May, some 30 km east of Mosul, has the capacity to accommodate 9, 0000 people. 

 

The UNHCR says that it was opened to receive displaced people from the western Mosul where the Iraqi forces are fighting against the ISIS militants since February. 

 

According to the US-led anti-ISIS global coalition ISIS is besieged in the last 4 square kilometers in the city's west, including the Old Mosul where the ISIS leader declared his so-called Islamic caliphate. 

 

CORRECTION: Rudaw earlier reported that two people have died, citing health officials.