UN special envoy De Melo killed in an explosion in Baghdad
Iraq-UN, Politics, 8/20/2003

News reports quoted a UN official as saying that United Nations envoy in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello was killed under the remains of the headquarters of the UN organization in Baghdad which was targeted by a booby trapped car.

The source added that De Mello's body was taken to a hospital in Baghdad.

Medical sources said that some 17 people, at least, were killed and other 60 wounded in the large explosion which shook al-Qanat hotel where UN employees stay in the downtown of Baghdad. ICRC planes transported the killed and the wounded, with the majority of them UN employees.

The US administrator of Iraq Paul Bremer stressed earlier that De Melo was among the wounded in the explosion and he remained for a longer time stuck in the ruins. De Melo was in his office when the explosion took place at 4.30 ( Baghdad Times ) ( 12. 30 GMT).

News reports in Baghdad said that the facial front of the hotel was completely destroyed.

Witnesses said that one missile hit the first floor of the hotel where a hospital is for cancer treatment, while UN sources said that the explosion resulted in booby trapped collision with the front of the hotel.

The spokesman for the UN organization Fred Ech-hard considered the explosion as a personal catastrophe and a political setback for the UN mission in Iraq.

In Baghdad an American official expected that the American forces consider the attack as a suicide attack.

This is, however, the second explosion targeting the UN mission in Baghdad. A booby trapped car went off outside the building of the Jordanian embassy on August 7th and this resulted in killing 17 persons.

Al-Qanat hotel was a base for the UN weapons inspectors during the years of research alleged to be in Iraq during the rule of President Saddam Hussein.

The hotel also includes offices of agencies that belong to the UN. The UN carried out a limited role in Iraq following the war as the American invasion forces maintain military and civil control in the country.

Previous Stories:
  UN envoy sees rapprochement between Iraqi Council and Arab League   (8/14/2003)
  EU lifts sanctions from Iraq   (7/8/2003)
  United Nations inspection team arrived in Baghdad   (6/7/2003)

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