The lives of thousands of Iraqis are going to be adversely affected by the Iraqi Red Crescent Society's (IRCS) decision on Monday to suspend its activities in Baghdad, according to doctors, humanitarian workers and ordinary Iraqis who depend on the organisation for their survival.

"We do not have anyone to assist us now that the Red Crescent volunteers have suspended their work. They used to deliver food on a daily basis to hundreds of displaced people in the capital. Now there will be no more food to eat and our children are going to suffer because we do not have any money to buy food," said Abu Zeinab, 45, an internally displaced person whose family has taken refuge in a derelict school in Baghdad with 23 other families.

"We used to wake up in the morning in peace because we knew that Red Crescent volunteers would remember us and bring us some food, but today we woke up desperate after we were told that they were no longer going to work in Baghdad. Until they return to work, thousands of children will get sick or die from malnutrition," Abu Zeinab added.

Since February 2006, the IRCS has been giving aid to about 245,000 people out of the 450,000 who became internally displaced in Iraq since that time. It has also continued its earlier work to assist those families already displaced in different areas of the capital and in other provinces.

With 1,000 staff members and 200,000 volunteers countrywide, the organisation has been ensuring that the basic needs were met of thousands of families in Baghdad alone.

No resumption until abductees returned

The IRCS suspended its work in the capital following the kidnapping of 30 of its volunteers on Sunday from its headquarters in Baghdad. Mazen Abdallah, secretary general of the IRCS, said on Monday that all operations in the 40 IRCS branches in Baghdad would be suspended until all the abducted people were released.

However, he said that IRCS work elsewhere in the country would not be affected. Seventeen out of the 30 volunteers kidnapped on Sunday have since been released. Doctors in the capital's hospitals hope for the quick release of the remaining abductees and the resumption of IRCS' activities.

"The IRCS has been the main partner of Iraqi hospitals with their weekly delivery of medicines and sometimes equipment. The suspension of their work could seriously affect the health system in the country and prevent more Iraqis from getting adequate health care," said Dr Ibraheem Kamal of the emergency department of Medical City Hospital in Baghdad.

According to Kamal, who was working closely with IRCS volunteers, at least eight main hospitals in Baghdad have been solely dependent on IRCS's assistance and dozens others in all 18 governorates countrywide received its aid at least once a week.

"The IRCS was delivering tons of medicine every month to the capital's hospitals and reaching out to the vulnerable, to those who did not receive any other assistance in displacement camps where doctors could not reach them due to the sectarian violence," Kamal said, adding that IRCS' suspension of activities in the capital could force some hospitals to close.

"Should hospitals in the capital be closed for a long time, we will have to start sending our patients home because we cannot afford enough medicines [to treat them]," Kamal said.

The Ministry of Health condemned the kidnappings of IRCS staff and volunteers. It said it was concerned about how hospitals will operate without IRCS assistance.

"The Ministry of Health lacks the funds to support each region, which the IRCS was helping before," said Kamal.

The IRCS is the biggest humanitarian organisation left in Iraq following the departure of the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), which pulled its international staff out of Baghdad three years ago following an attack on its headquarters by a suicide bomber.

IRCS is also the only local aid group which has been working across the country. Its main areas of focus are meeting the needs of the displaced and providing medical products and services.