Mum’s campaign
AN OBAN mum-of-two has won the backing of Argyll and Bute MP Brendan O’Hara after launching a campaign to help desperate refugees.
AN OBAN campaigner has this week launched an appeal for medical supplies – and for volunteers – to help two hospitals in a war-torn area of Iraq following the return of thousands of displaced Yazidi refugees who are desperately trying to rebuild their lives and homes.
Mother of two Fiona Bennett, of Ardchattan, is the UK secretary for Yazda, the global Yazidi organisation that works to bring justice, sustenance, healing and restoration to Yazidis, who have suffered under or are affected by the genocidal campaign against their people by the so-called Islamic State.
Fiona told The Oban Times: ‘It is three years since IS attacked the Yazidi community in Sinjar and in that time the city has been destroyed. The security situation is still unstable but people are trying to return to their homes, trying to rebuild their lives.
‘There are two hospitals in the region. Sinjar and Snuni hospitals are open and trying to function with hardly any staff and no medicine. The most basic medication, such as paracetamol and flu remedies, is being smuggled in from Syria at great expense and danger to life.
‘There are an estimated 60,000 people living back in the area and these two hospitals are fighting every day to provide care in unbearable circumstances.
‘The hospitals urgently need medical supplies, clothing and everything else we take for granted, as well as people to volunteer. That is why I am launching Missions For Medicine.
‘Once the supplies start coming in, I will also need a carrier to help get the medicine and equipment out to Sinjar. I would love to hear from anyone who is able to help in this area.’
Yazda is also running a mobile medical clinic in the Sinjar area. This vital service is treating up to 500 people every week. Most cases are as simple as cold, flu, allergies and other less urgent conditions. But the team is short of medicines and medical support to treat appropriately those in need, and to expand its services to reach more people in these areas.
Speaking at the launch of Missions For Medicine, Argyll and Bute MP Brendan O’Hara said: ‘This is a wonderful initiative, one that is seeking to alleviate the suffering of one of the most abused communities on the planet. And I wish it every success.
‘I know that the Sinjar and Snuni hospitals are enduring a chronic shortage of medicines, with even the most basic of painkillers in desperately short supply. Anything that we can send will be gratefully received by the doctors and nurses.’
Commenting on his own association with the Yazidi people, the local MP said: ‘I have been involved in highlighting the plight of the Yazidi people since first being contacted by my constituent Fiona Bennett shortly after being elected in 2015. The story she told me was so shocking that it would have been impossible for me not to try to help in whatever way I could.’
Since then, Mr O’Hara has raised the fate of the Yazidi community on numerous occasions in parliament and last year hosted Nadia Murad, a former IS sexslave, at Westminster. He was the only UK parliamentarian to be invited to join her in New York when she was made a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking in 2016.
He added: ‘When Fiona contacted me with the idea of collecting medicines to send to Sinjar, I agreed without hesitation. This is yet another wonderful example of her humanitarianism and it shows the power that just one committed and motivated individual can make.
‘The people of Argyll and Bute have a long and proud record of helping those less fortunate than themselves, and I’m sure they’ll rise again to the challenge of finding basic medicines to help the appallingly mistreated and impoverished Yazidi community.’
For details of how you can help, email fimacb@gmail.com