UN relief agencies move humanitarian supplies over Iraq's borders

United Nations relief agencies along Iraq's borders are looking at ways to bring in humanitarian aid, and the first UN food consignment to enter the country since the outbreak of hostilities has already crossed over from Turkey into northern Iraq.

The World Food Programme (WFP) delivered three trucks with 77 tons of dried skim milk to Dahuk, northern Iraq, yesterday to help with a nutrition programme it runs in the Kurdish provinces.

"Now that WFP has already started moving food across the borders with Turkey into northern Iraq, we are preparing to move the badly needed wheat flour - hopefully later this week - into northern Iraq," spokesman Khaled Mansour, told the daily briefing in Amman, Jordan, today on UN aid activities.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) is also trying to find ways of moving urgently needed humanitarian assistance into Iraq across both its northern and southern frontiers, spokesman Geoffrey Keele said. But two trucks loaded with medical and educational supplies and material for emergency water provision were still at Habur Gate in Turkey, pending permission to cross into Northern Iraq, he said.

To the south, in Kuwait, UNICEF is looking at ways to move large quantities of water under private contract into southern Iraq, where Mr. Keele said the need for clean water was urgent and the lack of it posed a significant health hazard for children. Yesterday, 13 vehicles were commissioned to go into the country but only three managed to deliver water to Um Qasr.

Veronique Taveau, spokesperson for the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq (OHCI), said four delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had reached Basra from Kuwait, across the front line, with the full cooperation of all parties and delivered spare parts to the main water treatment station, which is functioning at only half of its capacity.

The UN High Commissioner for the Refugees (UNHCR) reported that there had still been no significant refugee movements into surrounding countries. Two Boeing 747 cargo jets landed in Jordan today with 160 family-size tents donated by the Japanese Government to add to the agency's regional stockpile for Iraqi refugees.

In Geneva, UN Assistant Emergency Relief Coordinator Ross Mountain said the UN had 3,500 nationals working in Iraq, and that in the north, the staff continued to work at almost 100 per cent. The national staff in the south had been instructed not to go to work or to contact the UN if it put them in jeopardy, he told a news conference. Meanwhile, discussions were continuing on the UN's return to all parts of Iraq, with areas such as Basra, where humanitarian problems were evident, the main focus, he said.

For its part, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) focused on the need to ensure the continuity of education for the Iraqi children.

Declaring his "deep sympathy with the Iraqi people, whose suffering has been worsened by the lack of food and drinking water supplies," UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Matsuura reaffirmed his agency's determination to "resume as soon as possible, alongside the other eight United Nations system agencies involved, an active part in the implementation of the Oil-for-Food programme."

The UN Security Council on Friday unanimously endorsed an adjusted version of the programme that has allowed Iraq to use part of its oil revenues to purchase humanitarian supplies, including the food that is the sole source of sustenance for 60 per cent of the country's people.

"Provision of drinking water, food and medicine is an absolute priority, but we must also be ready to ensure the continuity of the educational process for the Iraqi children," Mr. Matsuura said in a message read out at the Amman briefing.