China is shocked at the devastating bomb attack on the United
Nations (UN) headquarters in Iraq, Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong
Quan said in Beijing Tuesday.
China condemns the violent attack meant for the UN staff, Kong
said, extending condolences to the victims and sympathy and
solicitude for the sufferers in the blast.
A truck bomb ripped through the UN headquarters in Iraq Tuesday
afternoon, causing heavy casualties.
Kong said China supports the UN effort for the reconstruction of
Iraq and strongly calls for authorities concerned to take measures
to safeguard the personal security of UN staff in that country.
Top UN envoy in Iraq dead
A cement truck packed with explosives detonated outside the
offices of the top UN envoy in Iraq on Tuesday, killing him and 19
other people and devastating the UN headquarters in an
unprecedented suicide attack against the world body. At least 100
people were wounded.
The bombing blasted a 6-foot-deep crater in the ground, shredded
the facade of the Canal Hotel housing UN offices and stunned an
organization that had been welcomed by many Iraqis, in contrast to
the US-led occupation forces.
Except for a newly built concrete wall, UN officials at the
headquarters refused the sort of heavy security that the US
military has put up around some sensitive civilian sites. The
United Nations "did not want a large American presence outside,"
Salim Lone, the UN spokesman in the Iraqi capital, said.
Emergency workers pulled bloodied survivors from the rubble and
lined up the dead in body bags. Survivors reported other victims
still buried.
The 4:30 p.m. blast may have specifically targeted Sergio Vieira
de Mello, the top UN envoy, said L. Paul Bremer, who heads the
US-led administration in Iraq. "The truck was parked in such a
place here in front of the building that it had to affect his
office," Bremer said.
Vieira de Mello -- a 55-year-old veteran diplomat serving in
what one UN spokesman called the world body's toughest assignment
-- was meeting with other UN officials in his office when the
explosion brought the room down around them. Vieira de Mello was
wounded and trapped in the rubble, and workers gave him water as
they tried to extricate him. Hours later, the United Nations
announced his death.
UN condemns bombing, mourns slain envoy
The killing of UN top official in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello,
and at least 15 staffers in Baghdad stunned the world body at its
headquarters in New York on Tuesday.
The UN Security Council condemned the bombing as a "terrorist,
criminal attack" while Secretary-General Kofi Annan cut short his
vacation in Finland and called for the "perpetrators of this
outrage" to be brought to justice.
At the UN headquarters in New York, the flags of all 191 member
countries were taken down, leaving only the blue-and-white UN flag
flying at half mast.
Dazed staff wept as television displayed grim pictures of the
devastation at the main UN office building in Iraq, where some 300
of their colleagues worked. Many were still trapped in the rubbles
and the death toll was certain to go up, officials said.
In a statement, Annan said De Mello's death was "a bitter blow
for the United Nations and for me personally." "The death of any
colleague is hard to bear but I could think of no one we could less
spare," the UN chief said.
UN officials said they believe the office of De Mello, the UN
Special Representative for Iraq, had been the target of the suicide
truck bombing.
De Mello, 55, had already served with honor in Kosovo, East
Timor and other hot spots around the world to handle difficult
missions for the world body, before he was temporarily moved from
his post as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to become the UN
Secretary-General's special representative in Iraq in June.
"He was working day and night to help the Iraqi people regain
control of their own destiny and build a future of peace, justice
and full independence," Annan said. "Let us strive to be worthy
ofhim, and to complete the work that he began, so that his death
will not have been in vain."
"Nothing can excuse this act of unprovoked and murderous
violence against men and women who went to Iraq for one purpose
only: to help the Iraqi people recover their independence and
sovereignty, and to rebuild their country as fast as possible,
under leaders of their own choosing," Annan added.
The 15-member Security Council affirmed that the blast would not
deter the world body from its work of rebuilding Iraq. "Such
terrorist incidents cannot break the will of the international
community to further intensify its efforts to help the people of
Iraq," council members said in a statement read by Deputy UN
ambassador Fayssal Mekdad of Syria, the Security Council president
for August.
Annan's spokesman Fred Eckhard said the bombing inevitably
raised the questions over the future of the UN Assistance Mission
in Iraq, which was set up by the Security Council last week to
coordinate humanitarian assistance and give political advice.
"Of course we will have to ask how safe we feel Iraq is as a
place for the hundreds of UN staff members who were going to join
Sergio's team as part of the new UN mission there," Eckhard
said.
(Sources from Xinhua News Agency and China Daily, August 20,
2003)