Red Cross pulls out Baghdad staff
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The International Committee of the Red Cross is scaling down its aid operation in Baghdad after receiving warnings that it might be a target for terrorists.
ICRC spokeswoman Nada Doumani did not reveal the number of staff being pulled out of the Iraqi capital but said about 50 of its workers would stay across the whole country.
She said staffing levels had been reduced since July 22 when a Sri Lankan aid worker was killed in an attack on a convoy south of Baghdad.
Doumani said the threat was not specific but involved warnings that the agency could be a target.
"We are concerned about the security of the staff working with us and the people who come to visit us. It seems some groups are not willing to let us work normally," Doumani told The Associated Press in Baghdad Sunday.
"We are very upset because our services are badly needed."
Florian Westphal, an ICRC press officer based in Geneva, Switzerland, added: "Due to the recent events ... the U.N. compound and Jordanian embassy bombing and daily attacks on the Iraqi people -- we have decided to scale back operations.
"It is a regrettable decision to have to take and once things stabilize in Iraq we may scale up activities there again."
Security fears have increased since the truck bomb at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad on August 19 in which at least 23 people were killed, including the chief U.N. envoy in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
Following the attack, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which had been coordinating attempts to assess Iraq's needs before a donors' conference in Spain in October, said they had ordered staff to leave. (Full story)
