Red Crescent closes Baghdad offices

The Iraqi Red Crescent today closed all of its Baghdad branches, a day after gunmen staged a brazen mass kidnapping.

About 30 employees and visitors were kidnapped yesterday, and 16 of those were released unharmed the same day, a Red Crescent spokesman said today.

“We gave orders to our Baghdad staff to stop working until further notice. We renew our calls for the release of the kidnapped persons,” said Mazin Abdellah, the Iraqi Red Crescent’s secretary-general.

He added that the group’s offices in other Iraqi provinces were fully operational.

Police said the gunmen arrived at the Red Crescent office in five pick-up trucks, but could not confirm the number of people kidnapped.

The Red Crescent, which is part of the international Red Cross movement, has about 1,000 staff and 200,000 volunteers in Iraq.

It works closely with the International Committee of the Red Cross, which visits detainees and tries to provide food, water and medicine to Iraqis.

At least half a dozen mass kidnappings have been carried out in the Iraqi capital this year, possibly by armed groups linked to the sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shiites.