Government plans aid package to ease humanitarian crisis

THE Irish Government will today announce an aid package to help alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Iraq.

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.