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UNHCR to transfer its Baghdad office to Amman

IRNA

Amman, Oct 31, IRNA -- The United Nations High Commissioner 
for Refugees (UNHCR) said it has decided to transfer its Baghdad 
office to Amman for security reasons. 
The UNHCR director Setin Broni in a telephone conversation with 
IRNA said the UNHCR has taken a decision to withdraw its staff in 
Baghdad and dispatch them to Amman, Jordan`s capital, where they 
would be based. 
Broni said some of the UNHCR staff members have already been sent 
to Jordan and the remainder would go there by the end of this week. 
Meanwhile, he noted, some of the UNHCR local staff would remain 
in Baghdad and would continue to cooperate with the UN agency. 
The UNHCR office for Iraq would continue its activities on Iraq 
from Jordan, he explained. 
The transfer of the UNHCR office came as a refusal to the calls by
the US Secretary of State Colin Powell who had asked the world 
agencies active in Iraq to remain the war-shattered countries. 
With the upsurge of attacks on the occupiers of Iraq, some 
international organizations have decided to leave the country. 
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has already 
declared that it would diminish the number of its staff in Baghdad 
following a series of deadly attacks against its headquarters in 
Baghdad. 
The attacks on ICRC draw heavy criticisms on the assailants saying
the ICRC was an impartial, neutral and independent organization for 
exclusively humanitarian mission to protect the lives and dignity of 
victims of war. 
A bomb attack in Baghdad on Al-Rashid Hotel claimed lives of many 
including some ICRC staff members. 
HB/214 
End