 |
|
|
|
 |
 |
Home / Employment / Contact / Search / Français / Español        |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
||||||||||
|
Press CentreBriefing note24 April 2003: What UNICEF said at the UN briefingUNICEF’s other main focus at present in Baghdad is garbage collection. The reasons for our preoccupation with this problem are not just connected to sanitation, important as that is. Briefing by Geoff Keele, UNICEF Communication Officer, IRAQ Good afternoon.
Our staff in Baghdad have been continuing to deliver tanker-loads of water to two areas of the city where it’s most needed – Saddam City and Abu Ghraib. UNICEF officers who’ve accompanied these daily missions say there’s no question that the people are grateful for this intervention – families with children especially so. At the same time, the water-tankering operation demonstrates how in some suburbs at least, any normal civil authority is still conspicuous by its absence, presenting new challenges for relief agencies trying to work there. In one incident today, UNICEF staff accompanying the water tankers were obliged to enlist the support of local clergymen, who had at one point attempted to dissuade the local population from accepting the water. After a short discussion, the cleric in question was reassured of our good intentions and the water distribution proceeded smoothly. Another, much more troubling, sign of a still very unstable security
situation in Baghdad comes from Al-Chawadir public hospital, also in
Saddam City. A quarrel Such incidents serve only to underline our repeated call on the de facto authorities to fulfil their obligations under international law to protect civilian populations in areas under their control. UNICEF’s other main focus at present in Baghdad is garbage collection. The reasons for our preoccupation with this problem are not just connected to sanitation, important as that is. What concerns us also is the number of accidents among children for whom scavenging in these piles of refuse has become a daily occupation. In some appalling instances, child scavengers have uncovered unexploded munitions among the rubbish, with predictably horrifying results. In the south, our Iraq representative, Carel de Rooy, yesterday joined
an assessment team visiting Basra. He reports that one water treatment
plant is currently receiving only twenty per cent of the raw water that
it received pre-war. Even more critically, its emerged that in southern
Iraq, stocks of chlorine gas – essential to treat water –
are sufficient only up to the first week of May. Geoffrey Keele, UNICEF Iraq:
gkeele@unicef.org For interviews in the region, write or call directly to the UNICEF NewsDesk in Amman: (962-79) 50422058 •
Broadcasters! |
||||||||||||
 |