Rescue people, not just banks, U.N. official urges

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A senior United Nations humanitarian official called on the world on Wednesday to rescue people from poverty and war, and not just banks from financial collapse.

As the United States pledges to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on salvaging its economy, and other countries follow suit, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres urged the world community not to forget the poor and vulnerable.

He said that at the same time that he was presenting this week a global appeal for $7 billion to help 30 million people, Washington had announced a $20 billion capital injection for a single bank -- a reference to the weekend bailout of Citigroup.

"I am not asking to have the same amount of money for humanitarian action that's being spent, or at least being made available, to rescue the international financial system," Guterres told foreign reporters during a visit to Baghdad.

"But at least we should have the same commitment to rescue people that we have to rescue the financial system, and to rescue the financial system is absolutely necessary. It is a crucial condition to avoid an economic depression that will have also dramatic humanitarian implications."

Guterres was in Iraq to visit U.N. staff trying to create the conditions for Iraqi refugees to return home after years of insurgency and sectarian violence between majority Shi'ites and once dominant Sunnis that followed the 2003 U.S. invasion.

POOREST OF THE POOR

The U.N. global common appeal he presented in Abu Dhabi seeks to raise $7 billion for around 360 U.N. and nongovernmental agencies helping "the poorest of the poor, the most vulnerable of the vulnerable," in 31 countries, he said.

It was dwarfed by the funds that the United States and other governments are injecting into economies to stave off a global slump that was triggered by the collapse of the U.S. housing market and a credit crunch that followed.

Guterres said the measures being taken were necessary.

"But indeed I think it's very important to draw the attention of the international community and to say, look, conflict, climate change, extreme poverty, all interrelated, are driving more and more situations of humanitarian disaster. The needs of humanitarian fields are not decreasing, they are increasing," he said.

"It would be immoral, when so many forces are devoted -- and they need to be devoted -- to rescue the financial system, if we would not be able to mobilize the much smaller amounts that are required to address the basic humanitarian needs."