Catholic Relief Services left Iraq last summer

Published: 2004-11-22

BALTIMORE (CNS) -- Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. Catholic overseas relief and development agency, quietly pulled its foreign personnel out of Iraq last June because the situation had become too dangerous for them. Sean Callahan, CRS vice president of overseas operations, said in November that the agency did not announce its decision at the time because it pulled its people out one at a time to avoid bringing dangerous attention to them or to other foreign humanitarian workers in the country. The Catholic Review, Baltimore archdiocesan newspaper, contacted Callahan following the Nov. 16 release of a video apparently showing the execution-style murder of Margaret Hassan, country representative in Iraq for CARE International, the largest humanitarian charity in the world. Hassan, who held dual British and Iraqi citizenship, had been abducted and held captive by insurgents in Iraq since Oct. 19. Callahan said it was a sad and difficult decision to remove CRS personnel from the country, "but the threat was too great. It wasn't worth the risk." He said Hassan's abduction and death confirmed that the CRS decision was correct. The Baltimore-based worldwide agency established a presence in Basra in southern Iraq in June 2003. At the time, the local Shiite residents, who had been oppressed by Saddam Hussein's regime, welcomed them, according to Anna Schowengerdt, who coordinated the agency's humanitarian projects in the southern third of Iraq.

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