With a dramatic increase in cases of children's diarrhoea in the south, the World Food Program (WFP) said it was planning to send international staff back into both northern and southern Iraq within the next few days if security permitted.

Its staff, withdrawn with all other UN international personnel on the eve of the war, would assist in assessing the needs of internal refugees, checking on property, milling and silo capacity, as well as in general preparations for receiving and distributing large-scale food shipments.

The World Health Organization (WHO) also said it was working hard to return international staff to Baghdad and the rest of Iraq once it was safe to do so.

The health organization said it had received disturbing reports from Baghdad that the ability of hospitals to do their work was being severely curtailed by the lack of civil order, and it was "extremely concerned" that this would have a very serious impact on health and health-care in the capital.

"The Medical City hospital center was reported to be running very short of water, which made it almost impossible for the hospital to offer effective medical care. Another hospital, Al Kindi, where many injured civilians had been taken since the conflict began, was reported to have been looted," it said in a press release, adding that hospital staff was reluctant to travel to work for fear of being held up by demonstrations, looting or celebrations.

It said that WHO was ready to deliver urgently needed surgical and medical supplies but this could only be done once security improved and once secure delivery could be ensured.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that while reports of continued chaos in Baghdad were seriously worrying and its local offices had been looted, the most alarming information was the dramatic increase in diarrhea disease in children during the past five days.

A hospital at the southern port of Um Qasr reported 50 cases for the first five days of April compared with 30 for the whole month of December last year, doctors believe the staggering increase is directly related to the lack of clean water.

"Based on what the doctors had seen, they concluded that malnutrition rates are likely to increase sharply by the end of the month all over southern Iraq due to the water situation," it said.

Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that there was still only a trickle of refugees reported to be leaving the country, with more than 100 reaching Syria in the past24 hours.

(Xinhua News Agency April 11, 2003)