Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units, have plugged gaps in Iraq’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as cases surge, according to Al-Monitor.com.
The Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) have rehabilitated a hospital, buried victims, sprayed public places with disinfectant and delivered oxygen in recent weeks as part of the nationwide efforts against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Haji Qusay al-Rubaye, head of the Baghdad office of the PMU's (Brigade 40), told Al-Monitor in a July 11 interview via Whatsapp that his forces had started providing humanitarian aid to the population at the very beginning of the crisis in February.
He said the brigade had given about 150,000 aid packages to the poor, produced masks and gloves and disinfected streets and public places.
Now, he said, the (Brigade 40) is providing oxygen to several hospitals as well as delivering oxygen tanks to those quarantined in their homes. He noted that all the funding for the brigade's help during the crisis has come from private donations.
Meanwhile, another PMU faction, the (2nd Brigade), is busy digging graves in a new section of Iraq’s Wadi al-Salam cemetery. Spokesperson Taher al-Musawi noted in July 12 Whatsapp messages to Al-Monitor about the “new Wadi al-Salam” is located on land granted by the local Najaf government after the “old Wadi al-Salam became full.” One section of this cemetery, said to be the largest in the world, is now set aside for COVID-19 victims, he said, with graves paid for by the aforementioned brigade.
Al-Musawi noted that on the initiative has been made after “an invitation to do so by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani," the 2nd Brigade had "begun preparing the dead and burying them,” ensuring that all religious obligations are fulfilled including the ritual washing and shrouding of the bodies as well as praying over them.
Federal police officers often stopped at PMU medical facilities along the road between Baghdad and Mosul for medical care and treatment of old wounds when this journalist rode with them in 2017 to the front lines in the final weeks of the battle for Mosul. The PMU also provided aid to the civilian population in some areas at that time.
