Baghdad, Iraq,1 September 2016 – On the first day of UNFPA’s support to WAHA, an international NGO active in the health field, a baby boy was born thanks to the medical skill of WAHA’s Dr. Tayseer Alkarim.On 24 of August 2016, UNFPA and WAHA launched their joint activities in the field of reproductive health in Jhela, Teena and surroundingvillages in the south of Qayyarah district, providing healthcare services to an estimated population of more than 10,000 IDPs, an intervention that is funded by the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO). But with no ambulance available to transport the mother to the nearest hospital in Makhmour, Dr.Tayseer and his team helped her have her baby at the reproductive health clinic in Jhela, where the family lives. “We called him Tayseer, after the doctor who brought him into this world,” said the baby’s proud father.

Military operations that are currently advancing towards Mosul are likely to affect up to  1.5 million people, with indications that several hundred thousand people will flee their hometowns to  areas on the of western banks of the Tigris River. Jhela village, located on thewest of the Tigris River, has just recently been liberated from the control of ISIL, which had controlled it since August 2014.The nearly two years of ISIL presence and control heavily affected the health system in Jhela, Teena and surrounding villagesinthe Qayyara district in Mosul, according to a recent joint assessment by  WAHA.Some 5,000 people live in Jhela, according to estimates, although there are still no camps for those who have been internally displaced (IDPs) into the village yet.

With the Iraqi army’s battle to take control ofQayyara city, the biggest city in the district, thousands of IDPs are moving towardsareas now free of ISIL, such as Teena, Jhela and surrounding villages. UNFPA seeks to fill gaps in the field of medical services as per its mandate on reproductive health by supporting WAHA in running a reproductive health clinic and reproductive health mobile team. The Directorate of Healthin Ninewagovernorate has agreed to provide the needed medications.

Baby Tayseer is already an Iraqi IDP,but his family is grateful to see him alive and healthy despite their precarious conditions. Like tens of millions of IDPs and refugees in the region, they bear the brunt of years of conflicts that have left millions of civilians in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. UNFPA leads humanitarian efforts in the field of reproductive health and strives to assist pregnant women deliver their babies safely.

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UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, delivers a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled.