BAGHDAD, 10 April 2003 — The International Committee of the Red Cross said yesterday it had temporarily suspended humanitarian operations in Baghdad because the situation in the city was “chaotic and unpredictable”. The Geneva-based agency said a Canadian staff member had been missing since Tuesday afternoon and was feared seriously wounded but that it had not been able to search for him.

“The precarious and dangerous situation and the chaos which reigns in Baghdad obliges the ICRC, with regret, to suspend its activities temporarily in the city,” ICRC spokesman Moin Kassis said in Amman. “We regret we cannot give help to those who need it in these circumstances.”

The decision coincided with news that a Canadian Red Cross worker, named at ICRC headquarters in Geneva as logistics chief Vatche Arslanian, 48, had gone missing in Baghdad after the car he was traveling in was hit by gunfire. “One of our colleagues in Baghdad has been missing since Tuesday night and he could have been seriously injured by shots fired at the Red Cross car he was traveling in,” Kassis added.

“The ICRC team has not left Baghdad and is still in our premises there. We will assess the situation and resume our activities as soon as possible,” he explained. The ICRC has 10 foreign workers and 100 Iraqis working in Iraq, he said. The situation in the Iraqi capital was “very difficult” with “hospitals overrun and Iraqi doctors working non-stop day and night”, Kassis added.

Arslanian had been wounded when a vehicle in which he was traveling with two other ICRC staffers came under fire. The ICRC in Geneva said that two cars, prominently marked with the red cross insignia of the ICRC, were either attacked or caught in crossfire. Two of Arslanian’s colleagues were able to escape and return to ICRC headquarters in Baghdad. “Given the chaotic and totally unpredictable situation in the city, getting from one place to another involves incalculable risks,” the ICRC said.

ICRC spokesman Roland Huguenin-Benjamin in Baghdad told CNN that ambulances had been unable to approach casualties in many parts of the city due to heavy crossfire as US troops battled sporadic Iraqi resistance. “Casualties have been seen on the roads, on some bridges, and there was no possibility of evacuating them, for the reason that there was immediate fire as soon as anybody was trying to approach,” he said. “We are very, very concerned that a convoy of two clearly identified ICRC cars with large flags on were caught in such a situation. One of our colleagues who is a logistician of Canadian nationality ... is feared seriously wounded and it has not been possible for hours to even approach the site.”

He said the ICRC was “extremely distressed by the fact that there are numerous casualties that have been lying on roads where military engagements have been going on, and it has not been possible to remove them and to evacuate them to hospitals”. The delay in reaching casualties in Baghdad could prove fatal in many cases, Huguenin-Benjamin said. Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Red Cross, told Reuters in Oslo that the ICRC convoy had been shot at while it was distributing relief supplies.

Meanwhile, the UN human rights chief, Sergio Vieira de Mello, said yesterday that he was “deeply disturbed” by the growing number of casualties among civilians and journalists during the war in Iraq. “There are inescapable obligations on the parties to the conflict. Human rights and international humanitarian law cannot be put on hold,” he said in a statement.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees yesterday warned that “lawlessness” in Iraq could force a population displacement, and urged coalition troops to restore order and ensure that humanitarian aid is delivered to the people in need.

“The UN refugee agency is very concerned about the general lawlessness that is apparent in part of Iraq,” the UNHCR said in a statement in Amman, which is being used by UN aid agencies as a forward base to monitor developments in Iraq.