Irish agencies pulled out early

IRAQ: Major Irish aid agencies pulled out of Iraq even before this week's bombing of the Red Cross, in spite of pleas by the US authorities for international organisations to remain in the country.

Both Concern and Goal left earlier this month in the wake of the worsening security situation and, in particular, the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad.

Trócaire says one of its local partner agencies was fired on last Friday, though no-one was injured. Visits by staff from Ireland have been postponed because of security concerns.

Goal, which employed up to 16 international staff as well as hundreds of Iraqi staff earlier this year, completed its pull-out of Iraq in the past 10 days, according to a spokesman.

The decision to leave was taken some months ago once the agency had fulfilled its role as a link between the old regime and the new, he said.

However, the deteriorating security situation was also a factor, according to Mr Ray Jordan of Goal, who said the area in which his workers felt safe to operate was shrinking by the week.

With the departure of other aid agencies from the country, there were "very few people left to target," Mr Jordan said. Killing US soldiers no longer made the news, so one way for people to gain publicity was to target humanitarian agencies. This week's bombing of the Red Cross in Baghdad would have come as no surprise to the aid community.

Goal was involved in a number of water and sanitation projects in southern Iraq and also helped to repair damage to health clinics in Nasiriyah. Concern, which shut down its operations in Iraq at the start of this month, said the decision was not motivated by security concerns.

"Security was becoming a greater issue, but our programmes were scheduled to end this month anyway," a spokesman said. Concern had worked with people in Salahaddin province, an area north of Baghdad that includes Saddam Hussein's home-town of Tikrit.

The chairman of the Irish Red Cross, Mr David Andrews, expressed sadness at the attack on colleagues in Baghdad, as well as horror that the attackers had exploited the Red Cross symbol by using an ambulance to deliver the suicide bomb.

The Irish Red Cross has no Irish staff in Iraq, but one of its delegates, Mr John Rowlands, is based in Amman, from where he coordinates the distribution of food in Iraq.