Iraqi muslims perform Ramadan prayers at a store, after the Iraqi government ordered all mosques to stay closed, following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease , during the holy fasting month of Ramadan, in Baghdad's Adhamiya district, Iraq April 26, 2020. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani
Qassim says he and a growing number of neighbours who do casual labour or run small stores have watched their modest incomes evaporate. They collect evening meals donated by a family at the local mosque during the holy month of Ramadan, often accepting this charity for the first time.Iraq has so far avoided a catastrophic spread of the new coronavirus, recording some 2,200 cases and less than 100 deaths, according to the health ministry.
The government last month announced a $25 monthly stipend for households struggling for income without state wages. Hindawi said 13 million people, almost a third of Iraqis, applied for the aid. To get their free evening meals, Qassim and his neighbours say they skirt the curfew. With the mosque closed, they gather to pray, shake hands and break the Ramadan fast at a shopfront each night. Men eat from large plastic trays. Women collect polystyrene boxes of rice and chicken to take home.
Israa Khalil, whose two brothers were killed by militias in 2006 and whose husband died of a throat infection several years ago, supported her two children with money from a state fund paid to her mother. But her mother died in March and that compensation is no longer paid.
JohnDrtrs You mean there are some Iraqis who are NOT poor? After almost two decades of war inflicted upon then by a foreign power and their own internal conflict some came out of that unscathed, prosperous, even well off? كلام فارغة
JohnDrtrs America is doing same thing to us here I sure hope the invasion happens soon it will be over quickly and easy to win and the Americans will see the Iraqis invasion force as liberators of America