Half a Million Iraqi Children could be Traumatised by War: UN Official by Carel De Rooy, UNICEF ReliefWeb 1:19pm 30th Mar, 2003   GENEVA, March 28 (AFP) - As many as half a million traumatised Iraqi children might need psychological help as a result of the war, a top official of the United Nations children's relief agency UNICEF said here Friday.    UN relief agency staff who were pulled out of Iraq before the US-led war began have been waiting impatiently here for the go-ahead to return to relieve the plight of the civilian population, with only sparse information arriving.    Carel de Rooy, UNICEF representative in Baghdad, admitted he had little information to go on: "We don't know what we will find when we come back."    "We suspect that there might be a major issue of traumatised children," he said. "I suspect that some half a million children in Basra, Najaf, Kerbala, Baghdad would possibly need psycho-social rehabilitation once we go back in."    Only Iraqi nationals among UN staff members have remained in place, working in tough conditions. A total of 1,000 UN staff left Iraq, while 3,400 local personnel remained.    "We would rather be in Iraq," said de Rooy. "We worked very closely with our teams there to the very last moment. We have a very solid team in place, highly qualified.    He said aid workers were waiting clearance to go from the United Nations Security Coordination Unit, adding: "We're ready to move to do our part to support the population."    UNICEF has 200 centres in Iraq, including 140 in Kurdistan, the Kurdish-held northern part of the country that has been outside Baghdad's control since the 1991 Gulf War, and 60 in Baghdad.    De Rooy, in daily contact with staff in Baghdad, had no precise information to date about child victims of bombings.    The UN refugee commission UNHCR was able at this stage to confirm only that there have already been major refugee movements.    UNHCR has set up four reception camps for 60,000 on the Iranian side of the Iranian-Iraqi border in the provinces of Kuzistan, Kermanshah and Ilam. To date the international Red Cross has reported some 22,000 people displaced near Penjwin, on Iraqi territory.    Information is likewise sparse concerning the situation in Basra in the south Asked about reports that Iraqis trying to flee had been impeded by Iraqi soldiers, UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said: "We have heard rumours, we are not in Iraq. So we do not have good first-hand information, but we've heard persistent rumours of people being hindered in trying to leave Iraq."    "But again it's one of these extremely difficult situations for us because we do not have anybody on the ground, we do not have any first hand information, and this is usually a situation where everything is sort of blurred, and you don't know basically what is going on inside Iraq," Janowski said.    Source : Agence France-Presse Visit the related web page
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