WHO to set up offices in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, June 30 (UPI) -- The World Health Organization plans to set up a permanent presence in downtown Baghdad to provide humanitarian assistance to Iraq's people, a U.N. envoy said.

The U.N. envoy to Iraq, Staffan de Mistura, said the World Health Organization, the United Nations' international public health agency, planned to move to establish a long-term presence in the Iraqi capital in order to ease the humanitarian crisis in the country, the U.N. News Service reported.

"We will continue to provide more support to the Iraqis through our programs in many areas of activity," de Mistura said.

The move comes as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced recently his desire to re-establish a stronger U.N. role in Iraq. The United Nations drastically cut back on its permanent staff in Iraq following the 2003 bombing of its offices in Baghdad which killed the top U.N. official in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Nae-ema al-Gasseer, the representative for the World Health Organization in Iraq, will have a permanent office in Baghdad.