Aid agencies said on Wednesday that the first trickle of aid had arrived in war-ravaged Iraq, but warned that a few tonnes of supplies were not enough to combat the country's looming disaster.
With the vital deep water port of Umm Qasr still not cleared for the British relief ship Sir Galahad, American soldiers brought aid trucks over the border from Kuwait, while in the north, a Medecins Sans Frontieres convoy with 10 tonnes of medical supplies was reported to be travelling towards Baghdad from Jordan.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The UN said on Tuesday that feeding Iraq's 24 million people, most of whom depend on government rations, will require its largest ever humanitarian effort.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan reiterated his warning to coalition forces Wednesday that while the conflict continues they are responsible for the welfare of Iraqis.
"I would want to remind all belligerents that they should respect international humanitarian law and take all necessary steps to protect civilians. Besides, they are responsible for the welfare of the civilian population in the area," he said.
As Russia became the latest Security Council member to express concern at the humanitarian situation, the WHO said that the situation in the southern city of Basra was critical.
Most of the 1.7 million people had been short of water for days.
Red Crescent technicians are reported to have restored access to the main treatment plant in Basra, but a WHO spokesman, Iain Simpson, said the water shortages were likely to lead to outbreaks of disease -- especially among children and old people.
"You have a population which is already weakened by lack of food, particularly the children, together with an infrastructure which was weakened by the last Gulf war. You put those two things together and you start to have a situation where there will almost inevitably be outbreaks of disease," he said.
US President George W. Bush promised at the weekend that aid supplies would begin arriving within a day and a half.
But setbacks for the allied troops and the slow process of sweeping mines from Umm Qasr's port have held up the promised supplies.
With pressure mounting on the coalition forces to deliver a massive humanitarian effort, the White House blamed Iraq's decision to mine the port for the delays.
Aid agencies fear the security situation may prevent them moving in their own supplies for up to two weeks more. Iraqi guerrilla tactics mean that it may be unsafe for the agencies to follow the military in as they had hoped.
"If you look at the way they are fighting in Basra, people taking off their uniforms, it is going to be house to house," said Alistair Dutton, from the UK aid agency Cafod.
"They are just going to be picking them off one by one and we are not going in while there are even two guns in the city because it would not be deemed safe enough for any ordinary aid agency."
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said it had warned the US and Iraqi authorities before sending the convoy of trucks over the border from Jordan before dawn Wednesday. The supplies, which include surgical kits, generators and water, are the first which MSF has managed to get into Iraq since before the bombing started last week.
"We took all the precautions we could to limit that security constraint," said Catrin Schulte-Hillen of MSF. "It will be important to keep the supply line to Baghdad open because we don't know how this situation will develop."
Behind the scenes, divisions over the humanitarian effort were widening Wednesday. Annan was meeting Wednesday with the heads of the main UN agencies to discuss resuming work as soon as the security situation permits.
An emergency meeting of the Security Council was last night expected to discuss a draft resolution giving Annan authority to run the oil-for-food program, which supports nearly two thirds of the Iraqi population.
Annan wants to revive it as quickly as possible, but is facing opposition from Syria, which believes taking control away from the Baghdad authorities in effect sanctions the war.
Russia and France are also opposed, fearing that America will grab control of oil resources.
The White House has said it wants to use the oil revenues to help rebuild the country but the Security Council members who believe that President Saddam Hussein could have been disarmed peacefully through UN inspections want to ensure that the immediate humanitarian costs of the war are paid by the US, not the UN.
Aid agencies, which are becoming increasingly critical of the military's relief work, want UN control as soon as possible.
"All humanitarian efforts should be put under the control of the United Nations," said John Davidson of Christian Aid.
UN agencies are awaiting the all clear from New York before sending their international staff back in. But most still have local staff and hope they can resume operations as soon as possible.
"We anticipate that, as in the Afghanistan conflict, we will have trucks moving in even during the war and replenishing food stocks," said Trevor Rowe of the World Food program.
Iraqis have about five weeks' supply of food left, according to estimates by the WFP.
The WFP has about 30,000 tonnes of food stockpiled in neighbouring countries, enough to feed 2 million people for a month.
Before the war, 60 per cent of the population depended on the oil-for-food program, which allowed Iraq to sell oil in order to provide food, medicines and other humanitarian needs.
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