Government plans aid package to ease humanitarian crisis
Minister of State Tom Kitt is due to meet with Irish aid agencies who will outline the scale of the crisis in the country and suggest how Ireland should respond.
UN secretary general Kofi Annan yesterday warned that civilians inside the besieged city of Basra could face a humanitarian disaster as a result of cuts to its water and power supplies: “I’ve heard a report from the Red Cross that the people in Basra may be facing a humanitarian disaster in that they have no water and they have no electricity and I think a city that size cannot afford to go without electricity or water for long,” Mr Annan said.
The Government is expected to source money for its aid package from a 35m emergency fund, which it has previously used for humanitarian crises in Ethiopia and Afghanistan.
It emerged yesterday that it could be days rather than hours before humanitarian aid is unloaded in Iraq’s only deep water port of Umm Qasr.
The commander of the Royal Marines in Iraq, Brigadier Jim Dutton, said the thousands of tonnes of aid, crucial to the coalition battle plan to win the “hearts and minds” of the local populations as forces pass through their towns and cities, were being delayed by local resistance and mines.
The aid is also vital to relieving the humanitarian crisis that aid agencies have warned of in the southern town of Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, which is surrounded and under siege by coalition forces but without water or electricity supplies.
Huge supplies of food, clean water, blankets and medical supplies are currently sitting on Royal Navy and US Navy ships in the Northern Arabian Gulf, but the waterway approach to the port has just been declared safe for Royal Navy mine hunters to traverse because of the extended fighting in the town over the last four days.
The small ships must now locate and disarm at least 70 defensive mines that were laid by the Iraqi regime to trap an invading seaborne force.
Brigadier Dutton said: “There is a delay in getting aid through Umm Qasr and anything that delays the aid’s movement is bad news. The town is now reasonably secure, but my estimation is that it will still be days rather than hours before the first ship can start unloading because of the mine threat. But there are other ways we are looking at to get the aid in.
“In general, I am very pleased with the progress the troops under my command have made so far. It was inevitable that we would be slightly slower in some areas than we originally expected, and faster in others, which has been the case.”
As small pockets of Iraqi resistance still held out in Umm Qasr yesterday, 42 Commando were ordered to move into the town to take over the operation from their US Marine counterparts. With their experience of military operations in Northern Ireland on a tour to the province last year, it was judged that 42 Commando were better suited for the job of clearing the key town street by street.
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