ICRC Sends Relief Aid to Basra
According to an ICRC spokesman, the relief caravan, including foodstuff and medicine was scheduled to be transferred to the Iraqi city of Basra.
Bombardments of Basra have been stopped since Friday morning, and the warring sides are seemed to have agreed on a non-official truce to give a chance to relief workers to fulfill their duties in Basra.
People living in Basra are suffering from coalition attacks as well as cutting off of water and electricity supplies.
According to another report, dispatched to IRNA form Qasr-e Shirin in Kermanshah Province, a team of Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) arrived in the Parvizkhan border region in this western province last week to get access to Kurd refugees in order to review the condition of those stationed on the Iran-Iraq border.
According to informed sources, the MSF team intends to enter Iraq's Kurdistan via Parvizkhan border in order to inspect the refugees' camps in border regions, discuss their problems and attend to their health and treatment needs.
An IRNA correspondent here said the team could not leave the border point although they have done their best to enter Kurdistan of Iraq and inspect the refugee camps.
A member of the MSF team told IRNA that officials in Kermanshah are trying to obtain necessary permission to leave this border region and have talks with Iraqi Kurd refugees.
Some 4,000 Iraqi Kurd people residing in Sulaimaniya and Kelar have settled in Parvizkhan border strip near Qasr-e Shirin since the U.S. and British forces unleashed an attack on Iraq on Thursday, March 20.
A large group of refugees returned to their homes in Kurdistan region over the past days due to U.S. forces' presence in the region and withdrawal of Iraqi military personnel from the frontline.
The Kurd refugees believe the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq's Kurdistan region and the retreat of Iraqi military forces to central regions of that country have brought about security for them.