Jordan launches study on women’s empowerment for national economic roadmap

Jordan launches study on women’s empowerment for national economic roadmap

BAGHDAD: Iraqi and UN officials on Saturday marked the 20th anniversary of a deadly attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad.

The Aug. 19, 2003, truck bomb attack on the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, which housed the UN headquarters in Iraq at the time, killed 22 UN staff including the head, Sergio Vieira de Mello, a rising UN star. It was the deadliest attack against UN staff in its history.

The attack came in the wake of the US-led invasion of Iraq that toppled ex-ruler, Saddam Hussein, but unleashed an insurgency and years of brutal civil war in the country.

At the commemoration ceremony held Saturday at the site of the attack, which has since been converted into a rehabilitation center for people struggling with addiction, the head of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said that the “wounds created by the 2003 attack — and the violence that came after it — run deep” and “may never fully heal.”

BACKGROUND

• The Aug. 19, 2003, truck bomb attack on the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, which housed the UN headquarters in Iraq at the time, killed 22 UN staff including the head, Sergio Vieira de Mello, a rising UN star.

• The attack