A Stand Off

I've been back from leave for a week now. Those of you that follow the blog will know that it was touch and go as to whether I would get out due to the issues in Iraq. Towards the end of my break, things heated up further, and as I had my 'blood test' visa validation in Baghdad (which interestingly requires no blood), it began to look like I wouldn't get back to Erbil and may be temporarily stuck in Baghdad. Thankfully I managed to get a flight up to Erbil which handily flew around Kirkuk avoiding fighter jets and landed safely if somewhat delayed.

Things in Iraq are best described right now as tense. The aftermath of the referendum in Kurdish-controlled areas continues to escalate as both sides try not to lose face and harden their stances. The 'border' between areas controlled by Federal Iraq and areas controlled by the Kurdish Government of Iraq has been shifting through force, and then reinforced by regulatory requirements for crossing. How does this affect us?

Well we are not particularly in any additional, imminent physical danger but the situation is impacting our work significantly. Some examples are:

• New and existing international staff being stuck outside of the country until new visas are processed, as we didn't used to need the visas for all staff.
• Delays in receiving our 'access letters' to enable us to pass through various check points to reach project sites. The teams which usually travel around have now been 'grounded' for 2 weeks and the cabin fever is palpable. Projects are continuing but not being able to access them increases the risk of things not being done to the highest quality.
• Increased travel times to areas we can reach as we have to navigate around new check points and routes. For example it was taking 90 minutes to reach our Kirkuk field office, it's now taking 3 hours.
• Issues with moving money between 'Iraqi' banks and 'Kurdish' banks due to the sanctions imposed by Baghdad.
• Not being able to move simple provisions between offices such as necessary paperwork, supplies, equipment etc. Many of my offices are in areas where markets are not functioning fully so we are usually trucking stuff around in order to keep staff supplied with stationary, cleaning items, tea & coffee, IT equipment etc, etc.
• Local staff feeling nervous about the situation and some are less willing to travel than they were.
• Continually getting turned around when trying to access areas. Today we tried to get through to Mosul only to get to the check points to find that during the time we'd been on the road they had closed again. Not only is this frustrating, but it carries the risk that teams get 'stuck' on the wrong side of the check points. We're prepared for this in terms of having places for them to sleep in each area, but it's not ideal.

Both sides in this need to come together for peace talks before things escalate any further, but at the moment that seems to be impossible. Please pray that the coalition is able to facilitate political talks to bring a peaceful end to this stand off, and for us to be able to do our work in the meantime. Please pray for the continued safety of the staff as they try and move around in tense areas, and for wisdom as we continually monitor the situation and make decisions on where to go when. There's certainly never a dull day!

Political Wranglings

I'm sitting in a hotel room in Bergen, Norway, writing this as the rain pours down outside. I wanted to give a little overall update for what's happening in Iraq as some of you will have seen bits and pieces on the news and via my Facebook feed.

1. Hawiga - this is the latest area of conflict near me in Iraq. It's a bubble of territory that is still held by ISIS. Over the last couple of weeks the military offensive to recapture the area has begun and with it has come some fairly significant numbers of people displaced. Displacement has happened quickly in waves which make it harder for the humanitarian community to keep up, but generally things seem under control from that perspective. My teams are slightly less affected by this as most of what's happening falls outside of my area of responsibility. However there is a specific town we've been trying to reach for months now. The one I wrote about ages ago with the river running through it with ISIS on one side. This town became inaccessible to us shortly after I wrote that blog post due to deteriorating security. It is now part of the frontline of the current military campaign. We know people are on desperate need there and we have supplies ready to go. The only reasons we have not been able to in the last two weeks is logistical issues. There are not enough bridges in this area across the Tigris - bridges were destroyed in the conflicts and so we rely on military pontoon bridges which are put in to place to allow access. However, because there are not enough the military sometimes has to move them to new areas. This happened in the last two weeks - we lost a bridge in Mosul as it was needed for Hawiga. Then the bridges are also struggling with the level of use and so weight restrictions get put in place making it hard to truck heavy supplies around. There also isn't enough warehousing available so storing stocks near populations in need is becoming a logistical problem too.

2. Add to that the current political climate. On 25th September there was a referendum in areas under Kurdish control for an independent Kurdish state. I won't get in to the politics here as that's not my job but suffice to say that the vote was not welcomed by the Iraqi Federal Government (or many international governments) and has been declared unconstitutional. The government has imposed various sanctions as a result, making travel between Kurdish controlled areas and Federal Iraq more and more difficult. We already had to have separate permissions for the different areas to get through checkpoints but it has got tighter and tighter. For my teams this is a very real issue - my most senior staff, both expat and national, are based in Kurdish areas but travel daily to project sites in Iraq proper or in disputed areas. Moving people and stock across those lines is suddenly much harder. As is leaving the country.

3. Sanctions - Until Friday 29th September international flights landed directly in the Kurdish areas at the two international airports - Erbil and Suli. From 6pm on 29th air space was closed to international carriers. What makes this difficult is that those of us living in Kurdish areas have a residency and visa related to that. Living in Federal Iraq requires a separate visa, and you cannot even transit through the airport in Baghdad without a visa. So there are huge numbers of expatriate staff across agencies who have got stuck either inside Kurdish areas, or are out on leave and cannot re-enter. Other sanctions that are being considered and/or implemented by Baghdad against Kurdish controlled areas are things like refusing to transfer money from the central bank to regional banks, refusing to pay civil servant salaries, asking diplomatic missions that do not have bases in Baghdad to leave etc. The ramifications of the referendum reach to neighbouring countries also. Turkey and Iran are both opposed to the idea of an independent Kurdistan and so have begun their own posturing - military exercises are suddenly being carried out in border areas.

What does all this mean?

Well, international staff and humanitarian work in general is not a target in all this. We are not under any additional threat. But our work has become much harder overnight. We are waiting to see what impact international talks may have, but are gearing ourselves up for a sustained period of trying to function in this political climate. We are putting together contingency plans. We are ensuring we have all the visas we might need. We are checking we have different options for banking in-country. And so on and so on. If you pray, please pray for resolutions to this political stand-off; we may not be a target but all these additional hoops to jump through ultimately impact our ability to provide assistance to those most in need.