The Irish aid agency Trócaire has shipped humanitarian aid to Iraq to ensure there will be clean water for 100,000 people in the besieged city of Basra.
A consignment of chlorine tablets has arrived in the southern port city amid fears of an outbreak of disease due to cuts in electricity supplies, the agency said yesterday.
The tablets will clean 1.5 million litres of drinking-water, which would provide clean water for one day to 100,000 people, Trócaire said.
Meanwhile, the head of the aid agency GOAL said there was a strong possibility that a humanitarian catastrophe will be avoided in Iraq because of the major response from America and the UK who are "vying with each other to bring in aid".
Mr John O'Shea said such will on the part of two major powers to bring relief to vulnerable people was unprecedented. He advocated the establishment of an "international logistical army without guns" to offer highly trained professional support to other countries in need of humanitarian assistance.
With UNICEF reporting that 100,000 children under five are at risk in Basra, the Children's Rights Alliance has called on the Government to urge a halt to military actions that could result in the deaths of thousands of Iraqi children.
Goal has been criticised by UNICEF for describing itself as the "lead agency in southern Iraq". In a press release issued on Friday, Goal said it had been appointed by the World Food Programme to take responsibility for the "immediate humanitarian needs of a combined population of two million people which will involve general feeding, supplementary feeding and carrying out health assessments".
However, executive director of UNICEF Ireland, Ms Maura Quinn, said it was recognised that GOAL did "very good work", but added, "it wouldn't have the capacity to be a lead agency. To say it would be responsible for the needs of two million people would be to overstate its capacity." She said the UN's concern was that such a statement "sows confusion about the reality on the ground".
A spokesperson for GOAL described UNICEF Ireland's concerns as being "about semantics".
Meanwhile, anti-war groups will hold a peace demonstration next Saturday at 3 p.m. in Parnell Square, Dublin. The demonstration, by the Irish Anti-War Movement and the NGO Peace Alliance, will proceed to Government Buildings.
US Police arrested two Nobel Peace Prize laureates - including Irishwoman Ms Mairead Corrigan Maguire - along with more than 60 others as they protested yesterday near the White House in Washington.
Police handcuffed Ms Corrigan Maguire and Jody Williams, a 1997 winner for her work to ban land mines, after they refused to leave Lafayette Park opposite the home of the US President. A police spokesman said they would likely be released within hours.