Post-ISIS Corpses Threatens Ramadi with the Plague

Amid efforts set to restore life in Al Anbar Governorate after driving out all ISIS militants, the process of making the close-to-leveled Iraqi area habitable once again proves quite difficult.

With an estimated 85 percent comprehensive destruction that ruptured through all corners of the governorate, authorities explained that with oil prices hitting a low and a struggling economy, rebuilding the rubble comes at high costs that are met with a budget deficit.

To top all that, 600 thousand citizens driven out of their homes had their hopes of return crushed after the local council’s statement on environmental hazards infesting their beloved neighborhoods that came as a result of the scattered scores of ISIS militant corpses ushering in the plague.

Ibrahim al ‘Awsaj, member of the Council of Juvenile Justice Gray told Asharq Al-Awsat that rates of pollution have reached 40 percent in areas like al-Dubat neighborhoods and Al-Hoz region, and 80 percent in southern zones. Endemics are feared to spread as an aftermath of ISIS bodies littering the streets, some of which stray animals are eating and others decomposing in open areas resulting in putrid odors filling the atmosphere.

Local Anbar council announced the assembling of committees comprising of health and hygiene experts, aimed at evaluating the nature of damage done and initiating efforts to size it down before the return of the refugees to their homes.

Chief clan members of Anbar argued that restoration cannot be put into effect without security forces employing an operative mechanism to control borders shared with Syria.

ISIS militants are being trained and armed in Syrian boot camps then dispatched into Iraqi grounds. If the plan on Anbar being reestablished is to be set in motion, border control is a priority.

The militants have an easy job set for them to push into Ramadi through freely open border routes. Establishing a potent ground jurisdiction in Anbar falls within the terms of restricting militant influx by joint efforts of both US and Iraqi forces.

ISIS-free areas are threatened by militants flooding through the borders with intentions of perpetrating suicide attacks.

Maj. Gen. Ismail al-Mahlawi, appointed commander of Anbar operations, told Asharq Al-Awsat that field progress has been successful in advancing to north of Ramadi. Army forces came on top after a battle that wrecked ISIS militants in al-Burisha, located north Ramadi, and subjected them to huge losses.

It is a matter of hours before Army forces push further into the northern district, in an operation to free and extract barricaded civilians, Al-Mahlawi announced.