Margaret Hassan's life was helping children...

October 20, 2004

Margaret Hassan's life was helping children — her reward was to be seized by kidnappers
By Alexandra Frean Daniel McGrory and Laura Peek
Source

A FEISTY, charismatic and fiercely intelligent woman, Margaret Hassan remained in her Baghdad home throughout the war, telling her bosses: “I am staying with my people. This is my home.”

There seems little doubt that CARE International owes its continued presence in Iraq, long after many other aid agencies had departed, almost entirely to her determination, detailed local knowledge and dedication to the Iraqi people.

A British citizen from an Irish family and married to an Iraqi, Mrs Hassan, 52, also has Iraqi nationality and “considers herself Iraqi”, friends say.

Slightly built, with piercing brown eyes, she speaks fluent Arabic and is a well-known figure on the streets of Baghdad. Although she is Muslim, she does not wear the veil when working.

Like everyone else in the capital, she is careful to alter her daily regime, although she is one of the few Britons still living in the city who is not holed up in the heavily fortified green zone where Western embassies and the Iraqi Government are all based.

A close friend said yesterday: “She was not reckless. She knew the risks of kidnapping. She knew of many Iraqis who had been abducted, but she insisted she would not be scared away from doing her job.”

Mrs Hassan has worked in humanitarian relief in Baghdad for more than 25 years, the last 12 for CARE International as Care Iraq’s country director.

Care’s work in Iraq was highlighted by The Times Christmas Charity Appeal last year, which raised £170,000. Its programmes focus on supplying clean water, food, blankets and generators to communities that have been left destitute by years of sanctions and conflict.

In recent weeks Mrs Hassan had condemned the US-led forces and Iraq’s interim Government for not doing enough about the breakdown of law and order across the country that saw kidnap gangs abducting children in their schools as well as foreign contractors.

“The whole place will explode if we don’t have security,” she said. “I can’t see anything moving forward until this is right.”

Friends say that she was furious about the chaos and insecurity ruling the lives of ordinary Iraqis after the invasion. “She was disgusted by the chaos, which she felt could have been avoided,” an associate said.

Mrs Hassan made no secret of her opposition to the US-led invasion in March last year, giving warning that it could produce a humanitarian crisis.

Only weeks before the war, Mrs Hassan said that she was sad that British troops were involved. She was also opposed to United Nations sanctions imposed in 1990, which she blamed for the deaths of hundreds of Iraqi children.

She had been equally hostile to Saddam Hussein’s regime and in February last year she condemned Saddam for squandering millions on building more palaces while the country’s infrastructure — its water, sewage and electrical plants — collapsed.

Despite her passionate defence of the interests of the Iraqi people, she made a point of never taking sides with factions, always putting the needs of ordinary citizens first.

“She did not shy away from saying what help the Iraqi people needed. But she always knew which way the wind was blowing and managed to avoid the political and security pitfalls swirling around,” said Will Day, chief executive of CARE International UK until earlier this year, who worked closely with Mrs Hassan for years.

She had built her own “bunker” in her house, but was mindful of the Iraqi families who didn’t have such protection.

Even at the height of the air raids on Baghdad, she would travel around government departments in the city offering assistance to local officials who had helped her in the past and lobbying them to ensure that fresh water was available in the main hospitals.