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UN relief organizations in Iraq to take extra security measures following attacks

UN relief organizations in Iraq to take extra security measures following attacks

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United Nations humanitarian organizations in Iraq are preparing to take extra security measures following the killing of two workers for international organizations earlier this week, a senior UN spokesman said in Baghdad today.

“As you now, we have extensive security measures in place already but clearly when these incidents are multiplying more measures are needed and such a review is underway,” Salim Lone, the newly arrived Director of Communications for Iraq, told a press briefing.

Mr. Lone said drivers had already been instructed to stay in traffic lanes where it is harder to mount attacks from passing cars, adding: “I’m sure there might be other measures that’ll be taken soon.”

A national staff member of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which is not a member of the UN system but works closely with the UN, and an international staff member of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were killed at the beginning of the week after their vehicles came under attack.

Taken together with earlier assaults on the offices of the IOM and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in the northern city of Mosul, Mr. Lone said such attacks could no longer be called “isolated incidents.”

“As you can imagine, if it is someone from a group opposed to the US presence in the country, they would imagine it is easier to take shots at humanitarian [workers] than against US forces,” he added.

On another issue, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today it would soon embark on emergency programmes to supply Iraqi farmers with fungicides and to restore agricultural water supplies.

FAO spokesman Barry Came told the briefing the fungicides were needed to combat widespread and chronic infections of smut that have been attacking the country’s winter grain crops, spoiling much of this year’s harvest of winter wheat and barley.

The water programme aimed to rehabilitate 31 major water-pumping stations in 13 governorates in central and southern Iraq in cooperation with the Ministry of Irrigation and the United States-run Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), he added.

Meanwhile, the UN Oil-for-Food programme, under which the sanctions-bound former Iraqi regime was allowed to sell oil for humanitarian supplies, reported that $57 million worth of goods stranded on the borders at the start of hostilities in March, including table salt, medicines and irrigation systems, had now been delivered.