The United Nations said today that it was temporarily withdrawing its staff from Baghdad for consultations on the ongoing security situation.
"We have asked Baghdad staff to come out temporarily for consultations with people from headquarters on the future of our operation," a UN spokeswoman in Geneva said.
Earlier today, the European Union's aid agency said it may close its Baghdad office after a devastating car bomb attack on the Red Cross left aid groups pondering their future in post-war Iraq.
The European Union Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) said it was reviewing daily the risk to its three expatriate and five local staff in Baghdad after Monday's suicide bombing of the Red Cross headquarters killed 12 people.
It was one of four attacks around the city that killed 35 people that day as violence continued unabated despite the US-led occupation.
The Swiss-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said yesterday it would pull some of its 30 foreign staff out of Iraq, but stressed it would continue to operate there. The agency has about 600 local staff in Iraq.
Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres also said yesterday it would withdraw four of its seven expatriate staff.
Other aid agencies and non-governmental organisations are expected to cut back their presence, dealing a fresh blow to the international humanitarian effort in Iraq.
"They are already running very high risks. You know that we are being targeted because we are humanitarian. I think the ICRC showed this very well," senior ECHO official Ruth Ms Albuquerque said.