Iraq's Humanitarian Crisis: British Charity Withdrawal

Last British Charity in Iraq Ends Operations

Meanwhile the last major British charity in Iraq has announced its pulled out its entire staff and ended its presence there. Save the Children UK had been in Iraq since the first Gulf War. The group says the security situation has made it impossible to continue operations. Save the Children says it can’t protect staff members nor reach the Iraqi children it wants to help.

According to the report, children make up about 50% of Iraq's population and 8% of children are suffering from severe malnutrition.  Save the Children joins Oxfam and Care in pulling out of the country.  Care left in 2005 after its director, Margaret Hassan was abducted and murdered.

Of course this situation rather lays waste to claims of Little Miss Sunshine Laura Bush that things are going so much better in Iraq and we'd all realize that if it weren't for seeing footage of daily bombing on our home TV screens.

"It was not an easy decision but it became more and more difficult for staff to get around all parts of the country," said Paul Roberts, the charity's Iraq programme director. "It's been hard to keep track of local partners' day to day work and their safety has been jeopardised. In practical terms it just became impossible."

Mr Roberts is based in Jordan along with the charity's other international staff but has made monthly trips to Iraq to try to monitor work with Save the Children's local partners. He said the security situation was getting worse, which made the decision to quit all the harder.