LONDON (AlertNet) – Aid workers in Iraq say new risks to staff amid a wave of kidnappings are forcing many of the handful of remaining agencies to pull out, even as tension between U.S.-led forces and insurgents creates fresh humanitarian needs.
Several big agencies said they were withdrawing staff after the capture last week of an aid worker from U.S.-based International Rescue Committee (IRC) in the southern city of Najaf, where U.S. forces were poised for action against a rebel cleric they had vowed to capture or kill.
"The situation continues to be very, very volatile and I believe that if there are any moves on Najaf then the whole thing is just going to blow completely," Norman Sheehan, chief executive of relief agency War Child UK, told AlertNet.
War Child UK withdrew most of its international staff over the weekend after a string of kidnappings that have seen at least 55 foreigners from 19 countries abducted by insurgents battling the U.S.-led occupation.
With the latest murders of an Italian hostage and an Iranian diplomat providing chilling proof of the new risks facing foreigners, other nongovernmental organizations are following suit.
"At a time of heightened military action on all sides, the dangers increase for NGOs," said David Wightwick of Merlin, a British medical aid agency that withdrew its international staff to Amman just before the Easter weekend.
"And if we're talking about a complete mismatch of military power, then the side that has less power is going to adopt more unorthodox tactics.
"If that means snatching foreigners on the street then that's what they're going to do, and there's not much we can do about it except keep out of the way.”
Agencies say U.S. attempts to quell a rising insurgency have created shortages of medical supplies, especially in Falluja, some 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, in a region known for its loyalty to former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
U.S. Marines launched an offensive to pacify Falluja after four U.S. security contractors were killed and mutilated there on March 31.
'MASSIVE HUMANITARIAN CRISIS'
Meanwhile, any big offensive against Najaf is expected to lead to shortages of food, water and medical supplies. A 48-hour ceasefire was declared in the city until 0500 GMT on April 16.
"There's a massive humanitarian crisis down there at the moment," War Child’s Sheenan said. "If you've got an estimated 600 killed, how many have been injured? What hospital can cope with that?"
He added: "There's nobody talking about a political solution here. It's boys with toys with their guns, and everybody's upping the ante the whole time.”
The latest NGO pull-outs come as aid workers wait for news of the IRC’s Fadi Fadel, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen in charge of programmes to provide safe children's play spaces in southern Iraq. Those programmes are now suspended.
IRC spokeswoman Melissa Winkler said nothing had been heard since Fadel’s abduction on April 7.
"It's been a bad week," she said by telephone from New York, adding that while some IRC international workers remained in the country, it was mainly up to Iraqi staff to keep programmes running.
She said the possibility of a major offensive in Najaf had led the IRC to suspend its work in the south.
Some NGOs that had previously argued that aid workers were not being singled out for attack said the latest incidents suggested a sea change had taken place in Iraq.
"For the established insurgency, whoever they may be, NGOs were not a target," Merlin's Wightwick said.
"But there appear to be a whole new bunch of groups and people setting themselves up as fighters. For them, in the heat of the moment -- and the moment is quite hot -- anyone appears to be a target.”
Before the wave of attacks on foreigners, Wightwick thought about 30 or 40 insurgent groups were operating, and he guessed that most of the insurgents were Iraqis rather than foreign fighters.
"There don't seem to be very many captured or dead (foreign) insurgents being paraded," he said.
NOWHERE SEEN AS SAFE
Kidnappings have occurred across the country. Even in the north, where several NGOs have a long history of working with the Kurdish population, aid agencies no longer feel safe.
Norwegian People's Aid (NPA), involved in landmine clearance in northern Iraq since before the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein, said security risks had forced it to suspend its mine-clearance activities in Baghdad and withdraw international staff to Amman.
The British arm of Handicap International said it was suspending its work in Baghdad, and Spanish-based Médicos del Mundo said it had sent its coordinator back to Spain.
International staff of British-based Mines Advisory Group (MAG) continued to work in the north, but spokesman Sean Sutton said it was reviewing the security situation on a daily basis.
Aid supplies have been sent to the besieged town of Falluja by U.N. agencies and others including the International Committee of the Red Cross, Intersos of Italy, the Iraqi Red Crescent society, British-based Islamic Relief, Merlin and Première Urgence of France.
About a third of the city -- which has a population of some 280,000 -- have fled, local sources told U.N. news service Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN).
IRIN said hospital staff could be unwilling to talk about patients from Falluja because they did not want to draw attention to the fact they might be attending to combatants.
War Child’s Sheehan said staff security took priority, even where humanitarian needs were strong.
"We try to set up situations where our local staff -- as long as their security is not compromised -- can deliver the goods if we're not able to," he said.
"We are pessimistic but we hope some sense will prevail and somebody will see that what they're doing is affecting thousands of people, thousands of families. Unless they sit down and somebody takes the initiative to start talking and to comprise, it's not going to be a good situation.
"The interim government needs to be more assertive and will actually have to criticize both sides for what's happening and see if they can exercise some authority here.”
Merlin’s Wightwick, speaking shortly before the release of three Japanese hostages after a week in captivity, said he was hopeful the security situation would not continue to deteriorate.
"It seems unlikely that the current level of violence will continue indefinitely,” he said. “We could have another Chechnya, but that doesn't seem very likely.”
Russia's interior ministry said that 605 people were kidnapped in Chechnya during 2003.
"It's nowhere near that level (in Iraq)," Wightwick said. "We haven't got to the sort of level that everyone's a target for everyone. I don't think that's quite where we are."
Survivors of the 2004 tsunami pass time outside their newly-built house in Ban Nam Khem, a small fishing village on Thailand's Andaman Sea coast in this December 9, 2009 file photo. ...
