GENEVA, May 7: The International Committee of the Red Cross on Monday announced a massive increase in its aid operations in Iraq, one of the most dangerous countries in the world for relief workers.

The ICRC said in a statement that it planned to expand operations along with the Iraqi Red Crescent to reach some 660,000 displaced people, about twice as many as before.

“The conflict is inflicting immense suffering on all Iraqis. People directly affected by the crisis are finding its increasingly difficult to cope,” said the agency's Middle East operations chief Beatrice Megevand-Roggo.

She also revealed that the number of detainees held by US-led coalition forces in Iraq had increased by 40 per cent in a year to 17,000.

The Geneva-based agency carries out regular visits to check on the condition of detainees held in four coalition-run camps in Baghdad and southern Iraq as part of its overall relief effort in the country.

Megevand-Roggo said the ICRC still had no access to detainees held by the Iraqi government, but negotiations on the issue were continuing.

Prison visits are generally carried out by expatriate ICRC staff, who mainly visit the most dangerous areas such as Baghdad, central and southern Iraq when needed, and are not based locally.

The bolstered ICRC operation in Iraq will involve some 69 expatriate staff, an increase of 12, alongside 456 Iraqi staffers “without whom our activities would simply not be possible,” Megevand-Roggo said.

“Iraq is if not the most dangerous place in the world, certainly one of the most dangerous places in the world to work in,” she told journalists.

“We are also aware that whatever efforts we are making now, we will not be able to meet the appalling needs in Iraq,” she added, underlining that daily death tolls from violence reaching several hundred “would be considered unacceptable anywhere else.” The increased aid mainly involves more help for the most destitute and vulnerable in Iraq, including the elderly, children and the growing number of women-headed households among those who have fled their homes.

It will also demand a 60 per cent increase in funding from donors to 91 million Swiss francs ($75 million), nearly three times as much as the agency needed last year for Iraq.

Megevand-Roggo said two new offices would be opened in the southern city of Najaf and another to serve the volatile northwest and centre of the country but warned that there were still many no-go areas.

“The ICRC does not use armed escorts,” she said.

The public announcement marks a major shift for the Red Cross agency, which warned less than a month ago of an “ever-worsening” humanitarian crisis in the country and a particularly bleak outlook in Baghdad and other areas with mixed communities.

After one of its offices in the capital was targeted by a car bomb attack and aid workers were killed in 2003, the agency scaled back its presence and pulled its expatriates out of most of the country.—AFP