UNICEF's executive director, Carol Bellamy, issued a plea to all involved in shaping the post-war future to protect the children.
"The war may be over, but the work is far from done," she said in a message issued the day after some of the agency's international staff returned to work in Baghdad for the first time in more than six weeks. "Children are still dying, and they're still at grave risk. Let's make protecting children as comprehensive and urgent an objective as ending the war was."
The New York-based agency cited the insecurity as responsible for stopping aid from reaching communities; degradation of the water system with widespread health hazards like diarrhea, cholera and other diseases. Added to that were unexploded munitions with daily reports of injuries and deaths, and stress on hospitals, including insufficient medical supplies.
The children's agency also said there was insufficient emphasis on the opening of schools, leaving children on the streets exposed to hazards. More than a quarter of all children under age 5 were already malnourished.
"We're calling on both Iraqis and the parties shaping Iraqi society to make the protection of children job No. 1," Bellamy said. "Iraq's future depends on the health and well-being of its children. At the moment we are failing them. They should be our first priority -- not only in words but in action. And, frankly, I'm not seeing nearly enough action for children."
For UNICEF, she said, "There is no more obvious and urgent priority than getting learning underway as widely and as quickly as possible."
Bellamy said, "Nothing will do more to immediately improve the well-being and protection of Iraq's children than getting them back in the classroom. Classrooms give children a positive focus, they allow the sharing of vital information, they keep children off the streets, they protect them from exploitation, they relieve parents and help them focus on their own recovery."
The World Health Organization's international staff, also freshly returned to the Iraqi capital, estimated that despite the damage done to the health system by years of under-investment, economic sanctions and more recently by weeks of conflict and looting, $20 million a month was needed to "jump start" hospitals and health centers across the nation.
In Geneva, a WHO spokesman said that in Baghdad, nine out of the 38 hospitals assessed by its team had been directly or indirectly hit by the bombings. However, it said that out of the 168 health facilities -- including hospitals and specialized centers surveyed -- 128 health facilities were intact, 25 were mildly damaged, and 14 were severely damaged with one completely destroyed. However, that tally did not specify whether facilities fell victim to bombings or looting.
With much of U.N. agencies' international staff returning to Baghdad, the daily humanitarian briefings in Amman, Jordan, have been discontinued, with the slack being picked up as best as possible by briefings in New York and Geneva while the staff is getting settled in the Iraqi capital.
Also in Geneva, Kris Janowski, of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said the agency was gradually returning its international staff to Iraq as the security situation slowly improves, at least in parts of the country.
On Saturday, five more international staff were scheduled to go into southern Iraq from Kuwait to get a first-hand impression of the situation inside the country, see how pre-war refugees from other countries were faring under the current circumstances, and eventually begin some preparations for their repatriation, he said.
Local UNHCR staff in Baghdad reported speaking with representatives of the Palestinian Red Crescent on the insecurity facing some Palestinians in the Iraqi capital, Janowski said. The PRC said that 250 Palestinian families had to leave their rented apartments and settle in a makeshift camp close to the PRC's hospital, apparently because their landlords were no longer receiving Iraqi government rent payments.
The PRC reported poor conditions at the makeshift encampment where the now-doubled refugees were sheltered, he said.
On the Jordanian-Iraqi border, dozens of Iraqis were still stuck in the frontier only meters from border post at Al Karama, waiting to enter the refugee camp at Ruweished, the spokesman said. Some of the people have been there for a month. The area also holds nearly 1,000 other people, mainly Iranian ethnic Kurds from Al Tash's camp.
On Wednesday, the Jordanian authorities permitted 14 Iraqis to leave no man's land and enter the Red Crescent's camp for third-country nationals, he said. The Iraqis apparently were allowed into Jordan because they carried valid United Arab Emirates residence permits in their passports.
"Under our April 15 agreement with the Minister of Interior, all Iraqis should be permitted to cross into Jordan for temporary protection in the refugee camp at Ruwaished, but only some of them are actually allowed in," Jankowski said.
The recent conflict has been notable for the lack of refugees fleeing Iraq. Most of those leaving were third-country nationals, not qualified as refugees, but who were helped, nonetheless.
The refugee agency in Iraq now faces internally displaced persons.
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