UN appeals for funds for Iraq
The United Nations has appealed to donor countries to make up the $259m shortfall in funding for its humanitarian work in Iraq over the next six months.
Around 88% of the $2.2bn that was appealed for back in March – prior to the US-led war – has been pledged.
The money is needed to counter the effects of the war and the looting spree that broke out in Iraq’s major cities after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Food supplies, fresh water, medicine, school kits, and supplies for the repair of major utilities are all required.
“There is still much work to be done and more resources needed,” Deputy Secretary-General, Louise Fr chette, said at the launch of the appeal in New York yesterday.
Money is also needed for less obvious projects such as mine clearance operations.
The UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Iraq, Ramiro Lopes da Silva, said lack of security is continuing to inhibit relief operations, and that continued looting of rehabilitated infrastructures was creating “a deep sense of frustration among the population and the humanitarian community”.
The UN is in contact with a large number of Iraqi ‘leaders’ in an attempt to reinvigorate local government and promote the inclusion of women in the new Iraq.
Meanwhile another major problem for the Iraqi people emerged today as a team of Greenpeace radiation experts reported the alleged discovery of nuclear material and high levels of radioactivity in villages to the south of Baghdad.
The Greenpeace team found high radiation levels in a series of houses surrounding the looted nuclear site at Tuwaitha. There were also unacceptably high readings taken outside a local primary school.
The pressure group insists that not enough is being done to protect the site, with nuclear campaigner Mike Townsley noting: “If this had happened in the UK or the US, the villages around Tuwaitha would be swarming with decontamination teams and the people given immediate medical check-ups. The people of Iraq deserve no less from the international community. Ignoring them is a scandal.”
