RIYADH, 9 April 2003 — The Kingdom has made arrangements to provide humanitarian aid to over 24,000 displaced Iraqis, according to Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Suwailem, chairman of the Saudi Red Crescent Society (SRCS).
“We have been trying to send supplies to Iraq in cooperation with international relief organizations, but we have been facing a lot of problems,” Dr. Al-Suwailem said. He added that attempts to send aid by road were hampered by security concerns. “The roads leading to Iraq are still not safe, and the Amman-Baghdad highway has become more dangerous,” he said.
With the war nearly at an end, many Saudi government agencies and philanthropic organizations had stepped up efforts to carry out relief operations in Iraq, he said. The International Relief Organization (IRO) is to operate 5,000 monthly relief trips from Kuwait to Baghdad, Basra and other Iraqi cities.
The Riyadh-based World Assembly of Muslim Youth has also set up three refugee camps in the Kurdish region for at least 6,000 displaced Iraqis.
Iraq is saddled with an estimated $61 billion in foreign debt and nearly $200 billion in reparations claims through the UN Compensation Commission.
Experts are estimating the cost of post-conflict security, humanitarian assistance and reconstruction of Iraq at an annual $20 billion to $25 billion over the next 10 years.
Dr. Al-Suwailem said Saudi Arabia had been working closely with international organizations including the UN High Commission for Human Rights (UNHCR), UNICEF and the WHO as well as the Red Crescent and Red Cross societies on providing aid and relief supplies to the Iraqi people. Saudi Arabia, he said, had substantial experience in handling relief operations as it carried out similar operations in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Chechnya.
The UNHCR office in Riyadh, which has already arranged for life-saving drugs and supplies for 180,000 Iraqi refugees, is discussing the cost and implementation of relief operations in Iraq with the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments.
