Engineers withdraw to camp amid violence and kidnappings

4.00pm

Sixty-one New Zealand army engineers helping in the reconstruction of Iraq are sheltering in their base camp in the southern city of Basra as renewed violence and a wave of foreigner kidnappings hit the nation.

Colonel Anthony Howie said the New Zealanders withdrew into the camp on Friday and will stay there until the situation has calmed down.

More than 600 Iraqis have been killed during a United States assault on insurgents in Fallujah, 55km west of Baghdad, since fighting began early last week.

The Kiwi base camp is a former Iraqi naval academy shared with British engineers. Basra -- about 500km south of Fallujah -- was relatively calm compared to other areas, Mr Howie said.

"Essentially it's ringed by a whole lot of containers stacked next to each other, reinforced with the sorts of things that armies use to reinforce a perimeter," he told National Radio today.

"Inside is tents and some command posts and parking areas for the vehicles and equipment and things like that."

Despite the escalating violence against coalition forces, the New Zealand contingent had no plans yet to abandon their deployment, which ends in September.

"New Zealanders aren't in the habit of cutting and running when the going gets tough," chief of defence force, Air Marshal Bruce Ferguson, told NZPA last week.

The engineers have been helping in the southern area of Basra with rebuilding schools and water plants and other humanitarian aid.

However, they always carried their 5.56mm Steyr rifles, Air Marshal Ferguson said.

The engineers were getting an excellent response from the local Iraqi people because of their humanitarian work.

"It is a New Zealand way of approaching other people, treating them truly as equals and having a total empathy for the situation they, through no fault of their own, find themselves in," he said.

Sunni insurgents and the marines agreed to a ceasefire that started early on Sunday and will last until the evening, amid talks between Iraqi officials on how to end the violence.

In fighting across the country since April 4 -- including in Fallujah and in the uprising by the militia of radical Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the south -- 47 American soldiers and nearly 900 Iraqis have been reported killed.

- NZPA

Herald Feature: Iraq