Covid-19: getting sick, a punishment in Iraq
An Iraqi man wears a mask bearing the likeness of Qassem Soleimani, an Iranian general assassinated a year ago by the United States in Iraq.
REUTERS - ABDULLAH DHIAA AL-DEEN
Text by: Lucile Wassermann Follow
4 min
In total, nearly 610,000 people have been infected since the arrival of the coronavirus in Iraq in February 2020. The death toll will soon exceed the 13,000 mark, according to the authorities.
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From our correspondent in Baghdad
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The figures for the contaminations in Iraq are most certainly underestimated, not intentionally on the part of the government, but because of a stigma associated with the disease in Iraq, which causes many people to hide that they are sick. .
Getting sick, a punishment
A large part of Iraqis consider that if a person is infected, it is because he has not behaved exemplary, or, in more religious terms, because he has sinned in his life.
And then there is also the fear of quarantine and of dying alone because the bonds and especially the family duties are extremely strong.
For example, being a man and being quarantined means no longer being able to protect his wife and children, and therefore no longer fulfilling his family role.
Dying in isolation means that the family cannot prepare the body of the deceased and follow extremely strict religious rites.
All this is unacceptable to many Iraqis, who therefore prefer not even to be tested.
Mistrust of the authorities
The health care system is extremely poor in Iraq, if not nonexistent.
Many therefore refuse to go see a doctor, telling themselves that it will be useless, or even that it will worsen their situation because the hospitals are very probably contaminated by all the patients already present.
And then there is also the fear of the authorities.
During the October 2019 protests, for example, kidnappings took place in hospitals.
Ambulances were sometimes used for these kidnappings.
Not by the doctors themselves, but as decoys, to target political opponents.
Add to this that the health authorities have been supported in recent months by the security forces in this crisis, and that these forces represent for many Iraqis, repression, even reminds them of the period under Saddam Hussein.
All this context creates a climate of mistrust, which does not make it possible to manage the crisis in good conditions.
► To read also: Iraq: the coronavirus, a crisis which is added to other crises
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