Aid agencies retreat amid Iraq violence

4.00pm - By MARY LONGMORE

New Zealanders working for international aid agencies are being pulled out of Iraq as a new wave of violence and foreigner kidnappings sweeps the country.

World Vision NZ communications manager Liz MacIntyre said the agency had closed its offices in northern Iraq after the director of the Iraqi Red Crescent and his wife were murdered on Saturday.

"Not only are they (aid agencies) not exempt, but they may be being targeted (by insurgents), it's hard to know."

Just one New Zealander, operations manager Judy Moore, was working for World Vision in Iraq and she, along with about 10 international staff, was on Easter break in Jordan.

"She'll just wait it out there," Ms MacIntyre said.

Another 67 Iraqi staff working for World Vision were affected, but would not be withdrawn from the country.

World Vision would review the situation on Sunday, April 18, Ms MacIntyre said.

The Salvation Army has also temporarily pulled out its international team from Al Amarah, including two New Zealanders, after the escalation of violence, spokesman Major Ian Fraser said today. They were waiting in Kuwait.

A team of New Zealand Salvation Army workers has delayed leaving for Iraq for a second time because of the violence.

The five-strong team -- including Hamilton City Council staff member Martyn Smith -- was to have left last week.

Tear Fund NZ programmes manager Ester Ducai said a team of about five Iraqi-born New Zealanders had already returned to New Zealand since helping as doctors and engineers there.

"At the moment they are back in New Zealand, and I am really glad, I am really worried about the situation."

She said the Iraqi-born New Zealand doctors and engineers had paid their own airfares to Iraq to help their homeland, after fleeing to New Zealand a decade ago to escape Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.

It had not been decided whether they should return in the current violence.

"They obviously have a burning desire to go there because their families are there."

The bodies of Red Crescent head Barazan Mohammed Ahmed and his wife were found dumped in a street in the city of Mosul, west of Arbil, at the weekend.

Ahmed and his wife, who also worked for the Red Crescent, had been missing since Wednesday.

- NZPA

Herald Feature: Iraq