Relief in the Heat

Here in the UK we have been enjoying (or for some - suffering) the hottest days of 2020. Temperatures have reached 28c to 33c this week. When you have no air-conditioning it becomes difficult to concentrate. More cold drinks and ice cream are required! Sleeping at night is not easy either.

But imagine the temperatures in northern Iraq this week. 39c to 45c. And imagine living in a refugee camp or other makeshift accommodation. Few of those people have any respite from the heat. A new nightmare is emerging - the rising numbers of cases of Coronavirus in the region. Perhaps worst of all is the sense of hopelessness. Years after ISIS were supposedly defeated, many thousands are still languishing in camps which were supposed to be temporary (the common story of refugees throughout the Middle East).

The extreme poverty of the Yazidi community in and around Dohuk in northern Iraq makes them especially vulnerable to the Coronavirus. Tens of thousands of Yazidis and Assyrian Christian internally displaced persons (IDPs) live in or around Dohuk. This is due to the ISIS expansion in Iraq in 2014 and the subsequent Fall of Mosul and the Nineveh Plains region after two months of fighting, in addition to the Sinjar massacre in which 5,000 Yazidis were massacred during the genocide of Yazidis by ISIS.

We have a programme of delivering hygiene packs with soap, shampoo, handwash and many other items.

Mosaic Middle East has now completed four distributions of packs, thanks to the generosity of our donors. This has provided vital cleaning products to 2,250 families. We want to do more in July. Each pack costs less than £15.

Please help us if you can.

We are all facing such an uncertain future or are we? For Christians we should have faith.... At the end of the famous passage in 1 Corinthians 13 the Apostle Paul wrote, 'Now faith, hope and love remain but the greatest of these is love.' We at Mosaic Middle East are trying to live up to that by God's grace.