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Iraq + 3 more

IOM press briefing notes 19 Dec 2003: Iraq

IRAQ / KUWAIT - Kuwait Trains Basra Burn Medics - IOM has organized a training programme in Kuwait for four medical staff from the newly-rehabilitated Burns Unit of Basra General Hospital in Iraq.
The initiative, under the auspices of IOM's Medical Evacuation and Health Rehabilitation Program for Iraq (MEHRPI), is in close cooperation with the Kuwaiti authorities and the Saud Al-Babtain Center for Burns and Plastic Surgery at the Ibn Sina Hospital in Kuwait City.

The group, which consists of 2 surgeons and 2 nurses, works in the Burns Unit of Basra General Hospital, which was looted and recently rehabilitated with the help of a MEHRPI grant.

MEHRPI staff, in close coordination with the Kuwaiti authorities, organized visas for the group, their return transport from Iraq, their accommodation in Kuwait, subsistence and daily transport to and from the Ibn Sina hospital.

MEHRPI is a dual programme which facilitates the evacuation abroad of Iraqi patients in need of treatment not currently available in Iraq, together with projects to help rehabilitate Iraq's dilapidated specialist medical infrastructure.

The program has facilitated the evacuation of 148 patients selected by an international panel of doctors since May 15th. Hospitals in 12 countries have accepted patients for pro bono treatment and 72 have already returned to Iraq.

The programme receives funding from the Kuwaiti government and ECHO and is made possible by donor hospitals and support groups in host countries throughout the Middle East and Europe.

IRAQ / PAKISTAN - IOM Facilitates Return of Iraqi Prisoners - IOM yesterday organised the return to Iraq of 37 Iraqi nationals stranded in Pakistani prisons for illegally entering the country during Iraq's Baathist regime.

The return was organised in close cooperation with the governments of Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. The UAE provided an aircraft from Islamabad to Basra. Kuwait provided a $500 reintegration package to each of the men, together with an $80 travel allowance.

IOM staff in Pakistan liaised with the Pakistani authorities and the International Committee of the Red Cross to trace the men's families.

A delegation from the transitional government in Iraq was also sent to Pakistan to verify the identity of the group and issue the men with temporary Iraqi travel documents.

Before their departure from Islamabad, IOM doctors conducted medical checks to ensure that they were fit to travel and provided them with clothing, shoes and bags for their few belongings.

MALI - Sierra Leonean Refugees Return Home - IOM earlier today organised the repatriation by air with UNHCR of a group of 88 Sierra Leonean nationals from Bamako and Banjul to Freetown.

The first 49 of the refugees, who fled Sierra Leone at the beginning of the civil war, had been staying at an IOM transit centre in Bamako for the past several days.

IOM provided pre-departure medical screening to ensure that they were fit to travel, and two IOM medical staff escorted the returnees on the flight.

"The refugees are happy to return after many years spent in Mali. Most families survived on odd jobs in and around Bamako. Once they were told they would be able to return to Sierra Leone, they sold their meagre belongings. Most will be returning empty-handed," says IOM's Salome Kombere.

The returnees will be met in Freeetown by staff from UNHCR and other agencies, who will provide them with shelter and reintegration assistance.

IOM plans to organise another four flights out of Bissau in Guinea-Bissau and Banjul in the Gambia in the coming days to repatriate another 350 Sierra Leonean refugees.

According to UNHCR, some 73,000 Sierra Leoneans are still scattered across West Africa, two and a half years after the official end of a brutal, 10-year civil war in their country.

Most of them are in Guinea and Liberia. Smaller numbers of refugees remain in Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Mali, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau.