In the picturesque town of Dukan, next to a beautiful alpine lake in Iraq's Kurdish region, checkpoints blocking the roads mark the beginning of a buffer zone to halt the spread of the deadly bird flu.
Teams of medical technicians and veterinarians prepare to enter the suspected "hot zone" where teenager Shanjin Abdel Qader died on Jan. 17 after she was infected by the fatal virus.
Their mission is to kill hundreds of thousands of birds in this northern frontier area bordering Iran.
PHOTO: AFP
The teams are dressed in blue or yellow chemical suits that cover their whole bodies, with masks, gloves and boots ensuring that no flesh is exposed. Hundreds of them have been at it for the past three days.
Cars leaving the zone are sprayed with disinfectant, and drivers are required to wipe their shoes on carpets impregnated with the disinfectant.
"We bought ourselves 10 tons [9.1 tonnes] of disinfectant, which cost us US$200,000 ... [and came] out of the budget of the province," said team leader and veterinarian Abbas Ali, adding that help from Baghdad has been slow in coming.
"With our meager funds, we have to disinfect all the villages, hamlets and residences in this vast zone," he said.
According to the Kurds, some 50 villages and 400,000 people have been placed under quarantine.
Ali also laments the lack of Tamiflu medication for his men, who could be in daily contact with the virus.
The equipment at the disposal of Ali's men is also inadequate compared to the sophisticated tools in developed countries, he added, hoping that help would come from international humanitarian organizations.
Beyond the checkpoint lies the village of Bankard in the district of Raniya, not far from Sarkabkan, where the outbreak of bird flu began.
The 4,000 people of Bankard are just starting to realize what kind of serious danger they are in.
Stunned, they watch in dismay as the team moves through their streets, searching house to house for poultry or domestic birds.
Chickens, ducks, all kinds of birds are shoved into sacks and thrown into a tractor before being disposed in a massive ditch, dug for this purpose.
"We are gathering up all the birds and burying them in a ditch four meters deep, far away from the houses," said Bassem Khodr Hassan, one of the volunteers on the team.
He looked around with regret at the dilapidated state of the village whose inhabitants don't even have the most rudimentary forms of protection.
"We're well protected with our suits, but I fear for those little kids who gather to watch us and have nothing to protect themselves with," he said.
Bafflement over the men in strange suits gives way to grief as the villagers watch their livestock -- for the poor their sole means of livelihood -- disappear into sacks to be destroyed.
Fatima Abdel Qader, 47, and her daughter live alone and own nothing but their poultry.
A young boy called Beshko Hamma can't contain his sobs as he follows behind the members of the team who have taken away his pigeons.
"I raised these pigeons myself," he said accusingly to the man in the chemical suit. "There are no sick birds in Bankard."
The villagers were extremely reluctant to see their birds taken, said one team member, and only gave in after the promises of compensation announced by the government.
"It's us or them," said one old woman with resignation.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was