Humanitarian activities to go on despite kidnapping

NGOs working in Iraq will continue their activities until further notice despite the recent kidnappings of Western aid workers in the capital, Baghdad, relief workers said on Monday. “Our intention is to stay on in the field,” Said Arikat, director of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), said. As UNAMI officially condemned the kidnappings, Arikat expressed hope that the abductions would not represent a setback for the mission. So far, aid agencies appear set to carry out their mandates, despite the obvious risks involved. “NGOs haven’t yet said that they will change anything,” said Kasra Mofarah, executive coordinator of the NGO Coordination Committee for Iraq. On 26 November, four aid workers in Iraq – two Canadian nationals, an American and a Briton – disappeared. Two days later, their respective governments confirmed that they had been kidnapped, although no organisation has yet claimed responsibility. The British hostage has been identified as Norman Kember, aged 74, a retired science professor and member of several religious charity organisations. Neither the US nor the Canadian governments, however, have disclosed the identities of their kidnapped citizens, or the names of the organisations they worked for, citing security reasons. Since the routine kidnapping of Western citizens in Iraq began in April 2004, two other British citizens, Kenneth Bigley and Margaret Hassan, have been killed by their captors. Bigley, a 62-year-old engineer, was kidnapped in September 2004 and killed by members of the Iraqi branch of terrorist organisation Al-Qaeda, allegedly run by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Hassan, the director of CARE International in Iraq, was kidnapped in October 2004. Although her body was never found, British authorities have expressed pessimism about the prospects for finding her. Hundreds of Iraqi citizens have also been the victims of kidnapping, both for criminal and political reasons. According to media reports from Iraq, these hostages are often killed.