Physicians for Human Rights and the Kurdish Refugee Crisis-Reply

Abstract

In Reply. —Dr Bradt has distorted our statements. The full sentence to which he refers reads as follows: Along with reports from other nongovernmental organizations and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the PHR report contributed to a governmental decision to mount a more effective relief effort and declare a 'no-fly zone' in northern Iraq so that refugees could move into lower and more accessible regions. In our PHR report on the Kurdish refugee crisis in April 1991, 1 we do indeed assert that PHR contributed to the governmental decision to improve the relief effort. Our estimate of 600 to 1000 deaths a day and our report on refugee conditions were immediately given to the US embassy in Ankara and relayed to the State Department in Washington—that agency, not the military, was then mounting the relief effort— and cited thereafter in the announcement of the political decision to declare