UN to pull out of Baghdad
The United Nations has announced that it is temporarily withdrawing its international staff from Baghdad.
The organisation is pulling its foreign staff out of the Iraqi capital in order to assess its security needs.
“We have asked Baghdad staff to come out temporarily for consultations with people from headquarters on the future of our operation,” UN spokeswoman in Geneva Marie Heuze said.
The decision by the UN follows Monday’s bomb attacks in central Baghdad. An explosion outside the Red Cross headquarters in the city killed 12 people. In August the UN’s Baghdad headquarters suffered a bomb attack, which left 23 people dead, including the organisation’s chief envoy to Iraq.
The UN reduced its staff in the Iraqi capital after the August attack.
UN officials insist they are not pulling out of Iraq entirely. The withdrawals will be staggered in order to maintain a constant presence in the Iraqi capital.
The United Nations employs around 30 international staffers in Baghdad and some 2,000 local staff around Iraq.
The decision does not affect the UN’s second base in Mosul, northern Iraq. Northern Iraq, which includes large Kurdish enclaves, is not believed to be as dangerous as central or southern Iraq.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced on Wednesday that it was reducing its international staff in Iraq in response to the attack.
