Red Cross is ready to allocate 100 million dollars for Iraq

The International Red Cross Committee (IRCC) is ready to allocate 100 million dollars for the solution of humanitarian problems of first priority in Iraq.

Chairwoman of the Russian Red Cross Tatyana Nikolayenko spoke about it on Friday at a news conference in RIA Novosti.

She reminded the audience that a co-ordinating meeting of the heads of the national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies took place in Baghdad on May 12-14. Its participants familiarised themselves with the real humanitarian situation in the country and met representatives of the Coalition Forces.

At that meeting the heads of the national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies confirmed the principle of independence, pointed our Tatyana Nikolayenko. "We are rendering assistance to the Iraqi people independently," she underscored.

According to Nikolayenko, the efforts of the national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, and of the IRCC, will be aimed at delivering medical equipment to Iraq and at ensuring the necessary medical personnel and specialists for purifying water there.

Apart from that, the chairperson of the Russian Red Cross spoke in favour of restoring the Iraqi Red Crescent whose branches were in sixteen regions of Iraq in the past.

Tatyana Nikolayenko said that "the situation in Iraq remains difficult." She added that representatives of the Coalition Forces had admitted that "they do not fully control the situation" in healthcare.