MFP workers and Iraqi colleagues at the Red Crescent office in Baghdad

Iraqi Red Crescent Workers Abducted

It was with considerable distress that we learned that 30 Iraqi Red Crescent (IRC) workers were abducted at gunpoint from the Red Crescent office in Baghdad on the morning of December 17. The kidnapping was one of many incidents that occurred in Baghdad that day, including the finding of 53 bodies, many of them tortured, in various parts of the city.

A large convoy of new vehicles approached the Red Crescent offices in the Monsour district and men in uniforms similar to those worn by the Ministry of Interior special commando forces entered the building and took hostages. The Ministry of Interior is tightly linked to the Shia militias operating in Baghdad. There is speculation that the perpetrators were either a Shia militia masquerading as a police commando unit, or US-supported police who have been infiltrated by the Shia militia members. Within 48 hours, most of the abductees had been released.

This was not the first time that the Red Crescent offices had been forcibly entered. The vice-president of the IRC, Jamal al Karbouli, has recently criticized the US-led multinational forces, for conducting raids on Red Crescent offices in Baghdad and in the provinces, particularly in Falluja. A US military spokesman stated that the US forces were conducting "searches".

After the International Committee for the Red Cross withdrew its staff from Iraq in 2003, the IRC was the only relief organization operating in all 18 provinces. With 1,000 staff and 200,000 volunteers, the IRC delivers food daily to thousands of displaced Iraqis. The IRC also delivers tons of medicine to Baghdad hospitals as well as to medical clinics in camps for internally displaced persons. Many hospitals in Baghdad are entirely dependent on the IRC assistance. This is dangerous work and in the past 3 years, seven IRC staff or volunteers have been killed in the war.

From 1991-1995, Medicine For Peace worked closely with the Iraqi Red Crescent conducting nutrition studies, operating a pediatric clinic, and distributing medicine to clinic in the south of the country. The Medicine for Peace assessment of public hospitals in Baghdad, issued in February 2005, was conducted primarily by former Red Crescent workers. The attacks by sectarian groups and the alleged attacks by multinational forces are particularly distressing, because the IRC has attempted to maintain its neutrality in the midst of the escalating sectarian violence.

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