UN aid staff return to Iraq

UN aid staff return to Iraq

Coalition forces blame Saddam Hussein for humanitarian problems

Foreign UN humanitarian staff have returned to Iraq, for the first time since Kofi Annan pulled them out on security grounds last month.

An 11-person team from three agencies, including the children's fund Unicef and the World Food Programme (WFP), are assessing the humanitarian situation in the southern port town of Umm Qasr.

On Friday, two trucks carrying medical supplies and a reported 10 trucks carrying water left Kuwait headed for the southern city of Basra.

Sweeping the waters around Umm Qasr for mines meant delays opening shipping passage for a large-scale aid operation, and several agencies have warned of impending humanitarian disaster.

Now the region has been declared relatively secure, the UN team will assess the water, food, sanitation, electricity and health provisions over their one-day visit.

They will also assess whether it is possible for UN staff to return to the area on a longer term basis.

Profiteering

The BBC's correspondent in Umm Qasr, Kylie Morris, says insecure access to water has contributed to unhappiness among residents at their "liberation" by coalition forces.

A new pipe brings water from Kuwait, she says, but the truckers who distribute it locally are selling it at inflated prices.

However, the UK Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram on Friday insisted there was "no humanitarian crisis in southern Iraq".

Water: now a precious commodity in some parts of the south

Mr Ingram acknowledged restoring access to water was "a real problem".

But a pipeline and reactivated water treatment plant meant "water availability in Basra is currently thought to be running at about 60 per cent thanks to the efforts of the Red Cross", he said.

Ten trucks - each carrying 37,000 litres of water - left Kuwait in the morning, Unicef spokesman Damien Personnaz told reporters in Geneva.

But he said it was "a long way from being enough".

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also said two trucks had crossed into Iraq and were headed for four hospitals in Basra.

They are carrying medical supplies such as blankets, bandages, anaesthetics and suture threads, it said.

Oil-for-food 'not enough'

Meanwhile on Friday, the WFP thanked nations for responding quickly to a $1.3bn food aid appeal.

But James Morris, the organisation's head, warned that funds from the resumed oil-for-food programme were insufficient.

The poorest Iraqis - who have been dependant on food rations from the Iraqi state - could run out of food as early as the end of this month if individual donors did not contribute, he said.

And a UN spokesman told the BBC acquiring food stocks was not the only problem.

The collapse of the Iraqi distribution network could also hamper the operation, he said.