By Jean Christou
FIVE of the eight helicopters used by the Iraq-based UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) arrived yesterday at Larnaca Airport as the UN operation geared up for a complete pullout in the face of a US-led attack on Baghdad.
The helicopters, minus UN inspectors, were flown in from Damascus in Syria where they had landed on Sunday following their departure from Iraq after the insurance firm they were using cancelled its coverage.
The 10 pilots aboard the US-made Bell 212 helicopters will stay at the Flamingo Hotel in Larnaca, where UNMOVIC has set up a centre. Three other helicopters, the Russian-made MI-8s, which are insured by an eastern European company have not been affected.
UN officials said yesterday the chief inspectors would tell the UN Security Council later in the day that their teams would leave Iraq within 24 hours.
Although 30 inspectors have left Baghdad in the past few days, according to reports in the British press, the UN said they were on leave or awaiting rotation. The reports said these inspectors had been advised to return to headquarters in Vienna.
At any given time, there are 90 UNMOVIC inspectors working in Iraq.
Key UN aid workers in Baghdad arrived on the island last week to check on preparations for a possible major humanitarian effort for Iraq.
About a dozen administration staff landed in Larnaca to visit a humanitarian co-ordination centre that is being set up in the town in the event of a war.
The main focus of the aid workers’ efforts would be handling relief for thousands of Iraqi refugees expected to flee into the countryside from Baghdad in the event of bombing raids, as well as refugees who might seek to leave the country altogether.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
