UN aid team hopes to return to Iraq soon

By Sofia Kannas

UNITED NATIONS personnel currently in Cyprus to assist with humanitarian work in Iraq are hoping to return there soon, a UN source confirmed yesterday.

Around 200 humanitarian staff have been staying on the island since they were evacuated to Cyprus from the Iraqi capital Baghdad on March 18.

Speaking to the Cyprus Mail yesterday Sonia Dumont, information officer for the UN Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq (UNOHCI) said a UN team was prepared to leave for Iraq to resume its work as soon as the situation allowed.

“There is a team waiting to go back to the north of Iraq. Other assessments are being conducted in different places in Iraq and as soon as the situation will allow we will have a permanent presence there again,” she said.

Dumont added that cooperation with the Cypriot authorities over humanitarian aid to Iraq continued to be excellent.

”We coordinate with our other offices in Iraq and in the region, to organise cross-border operations, convoys to Baghdad and to other parts of Iraq”.

“(We) have been cooperating even before we were evacuated here on March 18, ” she added.

Asked when she hoped humanitarian officers could return to Iraq, Dumont said a precise date had not yet been set.

“We are looking at returning to some parts of the country that are secure, for example in the north, but nobody knows what the ultimate time line is… the situation evolves so rapidly,” she said.

Dumont added that it was impossible to say how many personnel based on the island would be going on to Iraq.

“They will not all go to Iraq, as they were not all in Iraq to begin with. We have about 200 people here but some came from their headquarters elsewhere — for example, we invited several agencies to work with us for emergency preparations.”

“We did have over 100 people evacuated (to Cyprus) from Baghdad but it will depend on what is needed at the time how many will re-enter the country.”

UN flights to Iraq have not resumed since the evacuation of more than 100 UN staff to Larnaca last month just before the war.

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.