IRAQ: UAE humanitarian mission bound for Baghdad

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Att.Editors: The following item is by the United Arab Emirates news agency (WAM)

AMMAN, Mar 25 2003 (IPS) - A delegation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Red Crescent Society (RCS) early this morning crossed the Jordan-Iraq border en-route to Baghdad in a humanitarian mission to distribute medical assistance there and arrange for air lifting of hundreds of tons of relief aid.

In its land trip the delegation, which arrived here last night, will have to use the only, yet unsafe road to Baghdad.

The visit comes in the wake of a fund-raising campaign recently launched by Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and RCS Chairman, to extend a helping hand to the Iraqi people in their ordeal.

Soon on its arrival, the delegation, headed by RCS Board member Mohammed Atiq Habroush, divided into two groups, with the first one bound for Baghdad while the other will remain in Amman.

"Immediately on our arrival in Baghdad we shall meet with the Iraqi Red Crescent staff and other officials and visit a number of hospitals, shelters, schools and suburbs to identify medical and foodstuff supplies needed," Dr. Salih Moussa Al Taie, head of RCS Baghdad group, told WAM.

He said that his group would notify the RCS Amman-based group of the urgent relief aid required for it to purchase either from the local market there or from the UAE and arrange for their shipment to Baghdad almost on daily basis.

The current visit is the fourth by a RCS delegation to the Iraqi capital in the last two months, but the first of its kind since war in Iraq erupted.

– During the last three visits, the RCS delegation conducted a field survey of the delicate humanitarian situation there," Al Taie said, warning that Iraqi patients were suffering a lot from the deteriorating conditions inside the hospitals due to the economic sanctions imposed on their country with historically old diseases such as "the black fever" making a strong comeback.

He pointed out that the RCS had maintained strategic stocks of aid materials in all Iraqi cities during the past two months.

ôWe are in the process of launching an air bridge to lift hundreds of relief aid across neighboring countries such as Jordan, Syria and Turkey. This is in addition to land convoys sent to Iraq almost daily," Al Taie noted.