Care: 'Release Mrs Hassan'

2004-10-23 15:03

Sydney - Aid agency Care International said on Saturday it is "deeply concerned" for the safety of its kidnapped worker Margaret Hassan, following her harrowing televised appeal to the British government to help secure her freedom.

"Please help me, please help me," Hassan, a British-Irish-Iraqi national who heads Care International's operation in Iraq, said in a grainy videotape broadcast by Al-Jazeera television. "This might be my last hours. Please help me. Please, the British people, ask Mr Blair to take the troops out of Iraq, and not to bring them here to Baghdad."

In a controversial decision earlier this week, British Prime Minister Tony Blair ordered about British troops to Baghdad.

Hassan, 59, has done aid work in Iraq for nearly 30 years. She joined Care soon after it began operations in Iraq in 1991, managing a staff of 60 Iraqis who run nutrition, health and water programmes throughout the country.

She helped many people

She was a vocal opponent of international sanctions on Iraq and warned British lawmakers before last year's United States-led invasion that a conflict could produce a humanitarian crisis in a country already severely weakened by the embargoes.

In a statement released on Saturday morning, Care International said it "joins with the many Iraqi people who Mrs Hassan has helped over her decades of charitable work in Iraq in calling for her immediate release."

"Mrs Hassan is an Iraqi citizen and holds the people of Iraq in her heart," the statement said.

"We call on the people who are holding Mrs Hassan to be aware that she is an Iraqi and to release her to her family, her husband Tahsine and the Iraqi people who love her," the agency added.

Although she runs the charity's international operations, Hassan is formally employed by Care's Australian arm, based in the capital, Canberra.

The Australian government declined comment on Saturday. - AP

- SAPA