ICRC operations from Iran continue

Nearly two months after the fall of Baghdad, cross-border humanitarian relief operations from neighbouring Iran are being stepped up. Humanitarian organisations based in Iran, including the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC), have already dispatched 40 convoys carrying desperately needed materials, particularly food, medicines and water, to the people of Iraq, most notably in the Sulaymaniyah, Basra, Baghdad and Al-Kut areas. The Iranian government, mainly through its foreign ministry's Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants Affairs, the Civil Aviation Organisation and the Customs Organisation, has been actively supporting the operations, and facilitating access to Iraq through the Khosravi, Shalamcheh, Mehran, Banjwin and Piranshahr border-crossing points. In close collaboration with the International Organisation for Migration and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Iranian authorities have also been assisting displaced persons at the border seeking assistance, by furnishing the most vulnerable people with their immediate needs, as well as providing official and transport facilities for the third-national displaced people to return to their home countries. Meanwhile, ICRC has been collaborating with the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) in dispatching a range of humanitarian items through various border-crossing points to key locations in Iraq. IRIN has closely studied the operations carried out by the IRCS in the past three months. Since the beginning of the conflict in Iraq, the IRCS has supported the ICRC based in Iraq, and has so far sent eight convoys of ICRC trucks and trailers loaded with relief items such as wheat flour, medical kits, food parcels, tents, tarpaulins, kitchen sets, hygiene kits, water purification units, emergency health kits, water buckets, radio equipment and medical books. Five convoys left Orumiyeh (through the Piranshahr border) to Arbil, Iraq, while two other convoys were sent from Kermanshah through the Khosravi and Mehran borders to Baghdad, and finally one convoy transporting relief items was dispatched from Kermanshah to Al-Kut, Iraq. Furthermore, the IRCS has donated some relief items, which have been transported by ICRC trucks from Kermanshah to Baghdad. Moreover, two cross-border field missions to the Wasit Governorate (Al-Kut and Badrah), Iraq, were undertaken by the ICRC team in Kermanshah. "The missions' aim was to assess the three health facilities, to allow Iraqis to make phone calls and collect 'Safe and Well' messages, and to register Iraqis on the website in Kermanshah to investigate allegations of arrest," Maryam Kashefi, a senior field communication officer at the ICRC in Tehran, told IRIN. A team was left behind for a week in order to cooperate with the Iraqi Red Crescent. Peter Stocker, the head of ICRC in Iran, told IRIN that his organisation had been acting in close coordination with IRCS, and that it would continue supporting IRCS in the future in its relief operations in Iraq. He added that ICRC's approach to Iraq was regional, enjoying support bases in different neighbouring countries, such as Kuwait, Syria, Jordan, and Iran, underlining that "ICRC offices in these countries will remain operational for the time being". On being asked about the most vital need in Iraq, Kashefi told IRIN that "mine-awareness and health requirements for the entire population are the most preliminary and vital needs". Stocker referred to issues beyond immediate needs such as good governance, and considered "ownership" rather than "partnership" to be a significant requirement in Iraq today. He went on to say that "Iraq needs institutions to take care of the country". Fifteen years after the end of the Iran/Iraq war, ICRC is now implementing its relief operations for the Iraqi people, employing 65 international and local members from its head office in Tehran and two sub-offices in Kermanshah and Orumiyeh. With 1,458 km of shared border with Iraq, and about 90 percent of Iraq’s population residing within 200 to 300 km of the border, Iran has a significant role to play in providing access to Iraq for UN agencies and other international organisations in the region.