Red Cross cuts foreign staff in Iraq after blast

GENEVA - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Wednesday it was pulling some international staff out of Iraq following Monday's car bomb attack on its Baghdad headquarters.

The Swiss-based organisation stressed its humanitarian work in the country, where it has some 600 local staff, would go on.

"We are reducing the number of international staffers," Pierre Krahenbuhl, ICRC director of operations, told a news conference. But he said exactly how many staff would be withdrawn was still being worked on.

Suicide bombers struck four times in Baghdad's Monday morning rush hour, killing 35 people and wounding more than 200 in attacks on the Red Cross office and police stations.

The ICRC, which remains strictly neutral in conflicts, has been in Iraq continuously since 1980 during which time the country has had three wars. It visits prisoners, distributes medicines and maintains water supplies.

It had already cut its foreign staff, from a peak of around 100 shortly after the toppling of Saddam Hussein, in response to the killing of a Sri Lankan technician in July and the bombing of the United Nations' headquarters in Baghdad in August. The latter also prompted the UN to withdraw people.

Other aid agencies, including non-governmental organisations, some of which have already pulled out entirely, are expected to cut back further, dealing a fresh blow to the international humanitarian effort in Iraq.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said on Wednesday it had decided to pull out four of its seven expatriate staff in Iraq after the Red Cross attack.

"The other three will stay for the time being to sort out how to continue our programmes in the best way," Marc Joolens, MSF's Iraq operations coordinator, told Reuters.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq