The United Nations is temporarily pulling its staff out of Baghdad while it evaluates the security situation, but U.N. workers will remain in northern Iraq, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.
"We have asked our staff in Baghdad to come out temporarily for consultations with a team from headquarters on the future of our operations, in particular security arrangements that we would need to take to operate in Iraq," U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe said late Wednesday.
"This decision is not an evacuation and it doesn't affect the north."
Okabe would not provide details on when the staff would leave Baghdad.
U.N. officials, requesting anonymity, said an estimated twenty U.N. staff members remained in the capital Baghdad and some 40 others across Iraq.
The U.N. decision was announced two days after a deadly suicide car bombing at the Baghdad headquarters of the Red Cross.
Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres also said Wednesday that they were pulling out workers, despite pleas from the U.S. administration to stay, according to The AP.
The ICRC said it reconsidered its deployment in Iraq following a wave of suicide bombings in Baghdad earlier this week. (Albawaba.com)
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