Sanitary Teams Cull Birds In Kurdish Hot Zone

Teams of medical technicians and veterinarians prepare to enter the suspected "hot zone" where teenager Shanjin Abdel Qader died on January 17 after she was infected by the fatal virus.

Their mission is to kill hundreds of thousands of birds in this northern frontier area bordering Iran.

The teams are dressed in blue or yellow chemical suits that cover their whole bodies, with masks, gloves and boots ensuring that no flesh is exposed. Hundreds of them have been at it for the past three days.

Cars leaving the zone are sprayed with disinfectant, and drivers are required to wipe their shoes on carpets impregnated with the disinfectant.

"We bought ourselves ten tons of disinfectant, which cost us 200,000 dollars, which comes out of the budget of the province," said team leader and veterinarian Abbas Ali, adding that help from Baghdad has been slow in coming.

"With our meager funds, we have to disinfect all the villages, hamlets and residences in this vast zone," he said.

According to the Kurds, some 50 villages and 400,000 people have been placed under quarantine.

Ali also laments the lack of Tamiflu medication for his men, who could be in daily contact with the virus.

The equipment at the disposal of Ali's men is also inadequate compared to the sophisticated tools in developed countries, he added, hoping that help would come from international humanitarian organizations.

Beyond the checkpoint, lies the village of Bankard in the district of Raniya and not far from Sarkabkan, where the outbreak of bird flu began.

The 4,000 people of Bankard are just starting to realize what kind of serious danger they are in.

Stunned, they watch in dismay as the team moves through their streets, searching house to house for poultry or domestic birds.

Chickens, ducks, all kinds of birds are shoved into sacks and thrown into a tractor before being disposed of in a massive ditch, dug for this purpose.

"We are gathering up all the birds and burying them in a ditch four meters deep, far away from the houses," said Bassem Khodr Hassan, one of the volunteers on the team.

He looked around with regret at the dilapidated state of the village whose inhabitants don't even have the most rudimentary forms of protection.

"We're well protected with our suits, but I fear for those little kids who gather to watch us and have nothing to protect themselves with," he said.

Bafflement over the men in strange suits gives way to grief as the villagers watch their livestock -- for the poor their sole means of livelihood -- disappear into sacks to be destroyed.

Fatima Abdel Qader, 47, and her daughter live alone and own nothing but their poultry.

A young boy called Beshko Hamma can't contain his sobs as he follows behind the members of the team who have taken away his pigeons.

"I raised these pigeons myself," he said accusingly to the man in the chemical suit. "There are no sick birds in Bankard."

The villagers were extremely reluctant to see their birds taken, said one team member, and only gave in after the promises of compensation announced by the government.