The average Iraqi child now experiences diarrhea 14 times a year, relief groups.

BAGHDAD, January 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – While the U.N. experts Sunday, January 5, extended their hunt for alleged weapons of mass destruction to Iraq's second largest city of Basra, CARE and other humanitarian groups warned of "a disaster from a humanitarian perspective".

Humanitarian groups are most concerned about water and sanitation.

As treatment facilities have deteriorated over the past decade, the amount of drinkable water available to each Iraqi has fallen by half, and disease has surged as a result, reported the Washington Post Sunday, January 5.

Typhoid jumped tenfold and the average Iraqi child now experiences diarrhea 14 times a year. Diarrhea is a killer here; respiratory ailments and dehydration from diarrhea account for 70 percent of deaths among children, it added.

As a result, sometime in the next few weeks, 120 giant rubber bladders, each able to hold up to 1,320 gallons of water, are scheduled to arrive at the Baghdad offices of CARE, becoming frontline weapons in the other war - the one to save lives, according to the paper.

If the United States invades Iraq, any power outages would paralyze water treatment plants, Majeed Waleed, deputy project manager at CARE, told the Post.

Tanker trucks that could be used to deliver water might be pressed into military service, he added.

"So we thought that by using these bladders we would transform regular trucks into tankers," Waleed underlined.

Water would be among the most serious concerns in the early days of any new war in Iraq, but hardly the only one, according to CARE and other humanitarian groups.

Iraq's food distribution system, dependent on U.N.-administered oil sales, would likely collapse, they anticipated.

Hospitals, already short of medicine under U.N. sanctions, could become overwhelmed by casualties. Diarrhea and measles could spread. And hundreds of thousands of Iraqis could flee the fighting, warned the relief groups.

Crisis in The Making

Iraqis sold parts of their houses or sold the whole thing and moved to a cheaper area, Waleed

As more U.S. troops get orders to head for the Gulf region and the Pentagon readies its battle plans, humanitarian groups are preparing for what they call a massive crisis in the making.

Ruud Lubbers, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, recently declared that war "will be a disaster from a humanitarian perspective" for a country where conditions have already deteriorated dramatically during two decades of war, strife, repression and, for the past dozen years, economic sanctions.

U.N. contingency planners estimated that as many as 4.5 million to 9.5 million Iraqis could need food from outside shortly after the beginning of a war and predicted that as many as 900,000 refugees could spill into neighboring countries such as Iran, Turkey, Syria and Jordan.

Another challenge for humanitarian groups is helping a population that is significantly less able to fend for itself than during the Gulf War.

"There's a big difference between '91 and now," said Waleed.

"In '91, people had a cushion to fall back on. Don't forget, this was a rich country. If they got married, they gave gold. They had three or four TV sets... Now, of course, after 12 years anyone who ever got gold has sold it. People sold parts of their houses or sold the whole thing and moved to a cheaper area."

Three weeks ago, U.N. relief agencies requested 37.4 million dollars to cope with the expected crisis.

Tents, blankets and medical kits have been stockpiled in places such as Amman, the Jordanian capital, to be shipped in at a moment's notice.

Iran has agreed to open another border crossing where humanitarian goods could be brought in by truck.

However, moving these supplies into the country could prove problematic once fighting begins.

The road from Jordan crosses the western Iraqi desert, where bombing cut off traffic during the Gulf War of 1991.

Humanitarians are optimistic that Iran will play a key role with two logistics bases, including new roads into the Kurdish-dominated north.

But, they are pessimistic about negotiations with Turkey, which wants to seal its border during any war for fear of Kurdish refugees instigating trouble in its territory, according to the Post.

In the end, for all the planning by humanitarian groups, it may fall largely to the Iraqi government to handle the humanitarian crisis.

U.N. officials are preparing for possible evacuations of their foreign staff, and many if not most of the local workers could be drafted to defend their country.

U.N. Experts Continue Search

Meanwhile, the U.N. weapons experts extended their hunt for any trace of suspected Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Iraqi officials said that five disarmament teams went to work in Basra in the south and the northern city of Mosul, as well as inspecting sites around Baghdad, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

A team of inspectors visited a site in central Baghdad that was not immediately identified, according to officials at a press center run by Iraq's information ministry.

A team of missile specialists inspected the April 7 firm in Nahrwan, 20 kilometers southeast of Baghdad, while a third team traveled to Ramadi, 100 kilometers west of the capital.

In Mosul, a team inspected Ibn Sina hospital, while inspectors also visited a center of oceanographic studies at the university in Basra, 550 kilometers south of Baghdad, officials said.

It was the 37th day of inspections since the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resumed work in Iraq on November 27 after a four-year hiatus.

The United States is threatening to disarm Iraq by force, but Baghdad insists it no longer has any prohibited weapons.