Bureaucracy slows aid to Iraq

Bureaucracy slows aid to Iraq

Water shortages are acute

The flow of aid into Iraq is being severely hampered by bureaucracy and the lack of security, aid workers have said.

"International staff have still not been permitted to enter Iraq. We are very frustrated," Unicef spokesman in Geneva Damien Personnaz told BBC News Online.

"It is very difficult to make any plans if we don't have the capacity to work properly and to have the capacity, we have to get in."

The United Nations' food agency, the World Food Programme, says its first convoy of emergency aid has crossed into Iraq from Jordan.

We would like the US military to please, please, please fly a plane that is sitting at the tarmac in Denmark, full of medical supplies, into Irbil

Brendan Paddy
Save The Children

Agency spokesman Khaled Mansour said 50 lorries were carrying more than 1,000 tonnes of wheat flour, and the goal was to restore the pre-war system of food aid by the beginning of May.

Other convoys of food and medicine have entered Iraq in recent days from Turkey and Iran.

Most areas of Iraq are without electricity while the lack of clean drinking water has brought an outbreak of diarrhoeal disease.

In Baghdad, American military engineers and Iraqi electrical workers have been unable to turn the power back on.

Offices looted

Mr Personnaz said that Unicef had "lost everything" in Baghdad.

"Our local staff have no cars. It's very difficult to work without phones, paper, computers, desks and chairs," he said.

Unicef employees are waiting for permission from the UN security co-ordinator to enter Iraq, although they have been able to organise some deliveries of aid from outside the country.

In London, Brendan Paddy of Save the Children appealed to coalition forces to speed up transfers of supplies.

"We would like the US military to please, please, please fly a plane that is sitting at the tarmac in Denmark, full of medical supplies, into Irbil so we can get it to those hospitals, where doctors have fought tooth and nail to keep services going," he said.

Danger zones

Security is also hindering the humanitarian effort.

When you have people who are too scared to get out of their houses or too busy trying to protect their own homes... then you have a situation where aid can't come in

Geoffrey Keele
Unicef

"In the centre of the country, pretty much from Basra up to Kirkuk, none of those areas are accessible to us at this time," Unicef's spokesman in Jordan, Geoffrey Keele, told the BBC.

"It's not just a case of driving in a truck and opening up the doors. We need to have people on the ground - doctors, school administrators.

"But when you have people who are too scared to get out of their houses or too busy trying to protect their own homes... then you have a situation where aid can't come in."

The US forces have said the looting has stopped and order is returning.

But Iraqis say otherwise, reporting the presence of organised gangs on the streets.

"Security is still a concern... Even the American forces have said they are not present everywhere," International Committee of the Red Cross spokesman, Florian Westphal, told BBC News Online.

"Baghdad is still very volatile. We haven't been able to get additional materials to Baghdad."

He said the Red Cross was reluctant to assess an area unless they were able to act on the assessment but they would be expanding operations into central Iraq shortly.

Washington attacked

The war in Iraq has cost the US $20bn so far but there is no figure on how much has been spent to provide relief to Iraq's population.

Washington's priorities have been criticised, notably by the human rights organisation Amnesty International which has said the US is spending more on protecting oilfields than it does on protecting people.

Under the Geneva Convention the coalition forces are required to provide humanitarian aid and maintain order.