GENEVA - The International Committee of the Red Cross sharply criticized the "utter contempt" for humanity shown by all sides in Iraq amid fierce fighting between US forces and insurgents for control of the city of Fallujah.

A war-ravaged street in Fallujah. As the US offensive in Fallujah continued, the International Committee of the Red Cross sharply criticized the "utter contempt" for humanity shown by all sides. (AFP/Patrick Baz)

"We are deeply concerned by the devastating impact that the fighting in Iraq is having on the people of that country," said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, the ICRC's director of operations.

"As hostilities continue in Fallujah and elsewhere, every day seems to bring news of yet another act of utter contempt for the most basic tenet of humanity: the obligation to protect human life and dignity," he added.

"For the parties to this conflict, complying with international humanitarian law is an obligation, not an option," Kraehenbuehl said in an unusually tough statement by the relief agency.

The senior Red Cross official said the killing this week of a wounded insurgent by a US soldier and the death of aid worker Margaret Hassan, who was killed by her kidnappers, had "shocked the world".

"Like any other armed conflict, this one is subject to limits, and they must be respected at all times," he said.

Those limits included an "absolute prohibition" of the killing of people not taking part in fighting, and forbid torture, degrading treatment, and hostage taking.

They also imposed protection for the wounded as well as for civilians, the Red Cross agency underlined.

"The taking of hostages, whether Iraqi or foreign, is forbidden in all circumstances," Kraehenbuehl said.

The ICRC, which is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions, the main international laws governing conduct in warfare, said anyone responsible for violating those rules "must be held accountable for their actions".

As aid agencies were prevented from entering Fallujah, Kraehenbuehl appealed "for everything possible to be done to allow such organizations to come to the aid of the thousands of Iraqis who are suffering."

The ICRC pulled its international staff out of most of Iraq and pared down operations there after a car bomb exploded outside its headquarters in Baghdad in October 2003, killing 12 people.

Most aid agencies have withdrawn over the last few months amid kidnappings and attacks targeting international and Iraqi aid workers, or have relied upon local Iraqi staff to try to keep up deliveries.

The last remaining Australian aid agency in Iraq, World Vision Australia, announced Friday it was pulling out following the murders of its own head of operations in September and Hassan's murder.

Earlier, the ICRC said that its aid teams could not take the risk of entering Fallujah without contact with insurgents in the city.

"To enter the city we must be sure that all the warring parties accept our presence," spokeswoman Antonella Notari said.

"But one party to the conflict is out of our reach: we cannot establish contact," she told AFP.

Last year's attack in the Iraqi capital "proved that we are a target for some of the parties there," Notari emphasized.

The ICRC had no information from US forces on when they would allow aid teams into Fallujah, she added.

As the US offensive continued, the ICRC was providing aid including tents, blankets, water and food to displaced just outside the city, Notari said, but aid was limited because of insecurity along the road from Baghdad.

Most of the 300,000 inhabitants of Fallujah fled before the battle, but about 150 families stayed in their homes, an Iraqi Red Crescent official said Thursday.

There has been no official count of civilian casualties. US forces said about 1,200 insurgents had been killed while 51 US soldiers and eight Iraqi soldiers had died during the fighting for Fallujah.

US television channels showed video this week of a US soldier shooting an injured and apparently unarmed Iraqi slumped against a wall in Fallujah.

The US military said that the soldier had been withdrawn from the battlefield pending the results of the investigation.

© 2004 AFP

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