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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
IRAQ: International NGOs discuss exit strategies
BAGHDAD, 29 Mar 2004 (IRIN) - International aid agencies still working in Iraq are discussing possible exit strategies amid continuing violence and fear of more ahead of the scheduled handover of sovereignty to Iraqis on 30 June.
Already the rising number of attacks against civilians in Iraq is making those in the aid and media communities increasingly nervous, with some having received specific threats in recent days.
On Sunday two civilians were killed in an ambush in the northern city of Mosul, taking the civilan death toll in March to 12, according to media reports. On 22 March two Finnish businessmen were shot and killed, allegedly by a sniper, while in the same week a translator working for a Western news agency was shot and a hotel frequented by Western business people was hit by rockets.
"If this is true, what happened to the two Finnish guys, forget it. It makes me really scared," Alexander Christof, head of the German-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) Architects for People in Need (APN), told IRIN in Baghdad. "It's a change of tactics."
Some 30 aid agency representatives met last week to discuss whether to stay or go and how to wrap up programmes if they decide to leave, Pascal Marlinge, Iraq director of the Italian-based NGO Intersos, told IRIN in Baghdad. But they reached no conclusion, he said.
After a car bomb at United Nations headquarters in Baghdad in August, which killed 23 people, including UN Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello, several aid agencies stopped working in Iraq. A bomb at the International Committee for the Red Cross headquarters in October was impetus for many others to leave.
Now rising concerns among aid workers coincide with the return of the UN to Iraq. A team of electoral experts arrived in Baghdad on Friday with security support. The team is there to help prepare for elections scheduled to take place by January 2005. It will be followed by a team led by UN Special Adviser Lakhdar Brahimi as soon as possible, the UN said in a release on Friday.
At the moment up to 85 aid agencies may currently be working in Iraq, although the number is hard to pin down because many start up and shut down operations based on rapid changes in the volatile security situation.
For example, one aid agency last week stopped all of its work and sent half of its staff to neighbouring Jordan after receiving a direct threat. But at another agency, the international manager returned to the country a couple of days ago to oversee projects carried out by Iraqi staffers. Agencies requested that their names not be used for security reasons.
"It's very early to tell anybody about a solution to a confused situation," Marlinge told IRIN. "Some NGOs have not reached the 'red point', while others reached it a long time ago," he said referring to the point at which agencies decide to go.
Many Iraq watchers are expecting a rise in violence around 10 April, which marks the one-year anniversary of the fall of Baghdad and the culmination of the Muslim religious festival of Ashura. Some NGOs have already indicated they will stop working in Baghdad for a week to 10 days around that time. There is also a feeling that violence will escalate in the run-up to the handover of power in June.
But aid workers realise that a total pullout would have far-reaching consequences.
"If all NGOs go out, you have a humanitarian mess, a political mess. You have to set up systems so that doesn't happen," Christof of APN warned.
Before the US-led invasion that toppled former president Saddam Hussein, the world considered Iraq to be in a humanitarian crisis, Christof added, noting that little has changed on that score.
"Maybe it's not an emergency, but the need is very high. All sectors agree with that."
However, it was essential to ensure that aid workers' lives weren't in danger for no reason, Christof said.
"You have to balance the risk and the impact. If the risks [are high] and the impact [is low] you'd better leave," Christof explained. APN expects to be in Iraq through late autumn, he said.
Aid agencies that remain also realise that they have a smaller impact, said Heide Feldmann, director of the German-based HELP organisation. When international NGOs such as Oxfam aren't in Iraq, "this all affects the amount of programmes from the NGO side," Feldmann said. HELP plans to stay in Iraq through the end of the year, she said.
[ENDS]
This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004
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