UN Staff to Return to Iraq Despite Insecurity

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, April 13, 2003

UN Staff to Return to Iraq Despite Insecurity

A group of 11 UN staff members are to leave here for Baghdad next week, a spokesman from UN Humanitarian Coordinator For Iraq (UNHCI) said Saturday.

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A group of 11 UN staff members are to leave here for Baghdad next week, a spokesman from UN Humanitarian Coordinator For Iraq (UNHCI) said Saturday.

Ramiro Lopes da Silva told Xinhua that his colleagues would go back Monday to Iraq's governorates of Dohuk, Arbil and Sulaymaniyah.

"We intend to have around 13 international staff going to each governorate and then gradually expand our presence in southern partof Iraq," Silva said, adding that the organization would also establish a presence in the western part of Iraq.

It will be the first such team to return to the war-battered country since most of UN staff were evacuated before the US-led waron Iraq started.

The move came at a time when looting and anarchy grips the country after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime fell. Lootersand arsonists had plunged Baghdad into chaos and Saddam's Republican Guards mysteriously disappeared several days ago.

In other major cities controlled by the coalition forces, looting are spreading like wild fire as government buildings, foreign compounds, shops and even hospitals were plundered.

The instability held back humanitarian aids delivery into Iraq, where hospitals overflown with injured people are short of medicineand necessities.

"Many NGOs showed interest in sending much-needed medical assistance to Iraq, but the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) has insisted that roads were still unsafe," said Mohammad Hadid, president of the Jordan National Red Crescent Society.

The ICRC resumed operations in Iraq Thursday, after a one-day halt caused by the killing of Vatche Arslanian, one of its delegates, in a crossfire inside Iraq on Tuesday.

Twelve others were reportedly killed in the same incident.

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