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Press CentreBriefing note8 April 2003: What UNICEF said at the UN briefingBriefing by Wivina Belmonte, UNICEF UNICEF is concerned by reports of looting in certain areas – in Zubair especially. People are desperate and need to be reassured that aid trucks coming in, will continue to supply the items they need.
UNICEF’s trucking operations into North and Southern Iraq continue today. Five trucks carrying 31-metric tonnes of supplies have been loaded in the port of Mersin in Turkey and are on their way to the border town of Silopi, to go across Harbour Gate into Northern Iraq tomorrow. UNICEF’s supplies will go to Dohuk and be distributed from there. Items include: hospital beds, latrines, hospital equipment, and health care supplies such as, syringes, thermometers, and vaccine storage. Another eleven trucks are on their way into Southern Iraq today, to Um Qail, South Basra, Safwan and Zubair. Since UNICEF began its humanitarian deliveries from Kuwait, 85 trucks have taken life-saving supplies into Southern Iraq. Our drivers have been an excellent source of information, helping us target the right supplies to the right places so that children in need and hospitals lacking medicines and supplies, get them. UNICEF is concerned, however, by reports from our drivers of scenes of looting in certain areas they have visited – in Zubair especially. They say schools are being looted and that while the situation is chaotic it is still manageable for them. People are, very simply, desperate and need to be reassured that aid trucks coming in, will continue to supply them with the items they need. The looting in schools is a dual concern. The obvious one is the additional damage this does to an educational infrastructure that was already sorely rundown. The other concern is with schools, and any other locations where intense fighting took place, becoming places of curiosity for children. Now that fighting in these areas has subsided, and children can leave their homes more freely, there is a natural curiosity to visit places where fighting took place and a natural tendency to be drawn to souvenirs and remnants of war. Souvenirs of war can be lethal souvenirs for children.
For further information please contact us:. 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 •
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