BASRA, Iraq, May 4 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The United Nations warned Sunday, May 4, from its new humanitarian operations base in the southern Iraqi city of Basra of a breakdown in the south's delivery of public services.

"We must get public services and various infrastructure up and running, create jobs, ensure essential services, that's the goal," U.N. operations coordinator Kim Bolduc told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Some isolated regions in southern Iraq are still inaccessible for security reasons and Bolduc said the U.N. team was counting on visiting them as quickly as possible to determine the needs of the population.

"The general impression is that we don't have a humanitarian crisis but a chronic and serious structural crisis," Bolduc said after meeting with NGO representatives and British military deployed in the area.

"If we don't intervene early enough, the situation could worsen and we could find ourselves confronted with a humanitarian crisis," she warned.

The U.N. mission was "humanitarian" only, offering emergency support, while the United States has “taken charge” of the country's civil administration after U.S. forces occupied the country.

"The mandate is effectively not in the same scope as preceding mandates," Bolduc said, referring to U.N. missions to Afghanistan, Kosovo and East Timor.

Some 25 staff from the U.N. Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Program (WFP) arrived Saturday, May 3, in Basra, considered Iraq's largest southern city and a major port with its over one million inhabitants.

"Operations began seven to eight days ago. UNICEF and the WFP made contact with their local network to organize their activities," Bolduc said.

Staff from other U.N. agencies, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.N. Development Program, are expected to join the team.

The United Nations will provide assistance to restore health, sanitation, water, food and education and to clear unexploded munitions, according to Fred Eckhard, spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Bolduc underlined the need to "de-politicize" the school system. Iraqi schoolchildren had to swear their loyalty to now ousted president Saddam Hussein at the start of every school year.

The U.N. teams are temporarily staying in two central Basra hotels while they wait to find offices and housing to lodge staffers.

The United Nations, which also has a presence in Baghdad and the northern Iraqi city of Arbil, will establish other missions in northern Mosul and central Hilla "as soon as conditions allow," Bolduc said.

Meanwhile, with fear mounting of an impending humanitarian disaster and security worsening, the International Committee of the Red Cross demanded Sunday access to Iraqi prisoners held by U.S.-British coalition forces.

"The ICRC still does not have access to all the prisoners and detainees in the country," said Nana Doumani, the organization’s spokeswoman in Baghdad.

"The parties must respect the Geneva Convention on prisoners," she pleaded.

U.S. Central Command in Qatar announced Saturday, May 3, that 342 more POWs had been released, taking the total number set free to 5,745.

Nearly 3,600 Iraqis prisoners remained in detention.

Doumani said about 2,000 people had been arrested for common law offences in the capital since April 10, the day after coalition forces entered and mass looting erupted.

The ICRC has also been denied access to former senior Iraqi officials who have either surrendered or been captured by the coalition forces, including deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz.

The U.N. chief of mission warned that Iraq is still ripe for a humanitarian disaster even though the shooting has all but stopped, noting that too many people were going without food, water and power.

"The conditions for the development of a humanitarian disaster still exist," Ramiro Lopes da Silva said Saturday.

"It's (already) a humanitarian disaster in the sense basic services have collapsed or are at the risk of collapsing if we don't put them back into shape rather quickly," he said.

Lopes da Silva, who returned to Baghdad on Thursday with other U.N. officials who fled two days before the war began on March 20, said nearly two-thirds of Iraqis totally depended on food aid. Malnutrition was rampant.

And the director of British charity Oxfam accused U.S.-led forces of failing to do enough to protect aid workers.

"At the moment it's very high risk for our staff to be in Iraq... that's not good enough," Barbara Stocking told BBC radio on Saturday.

"We need the coalition forces to provide the security, and we need them also to do something about the mines and the unexploded ordnance that there is around

"The occupying power has to provide the security and they are not. That's their legal obligation under the Geneva Conventions," Stocking said.

Despite the presence of 12,000 U.S. soldiers in Baghdad and the planned deployment of up to 4,000 more, security has deteriorated in the city where weapons are easily available and an effective police force has yet to be set up.

In Baghdad's Sadr City, a huge Shiite slum of two million people, hospital officials voice fears for their safety.

"There are large numbers of thieves, drug addicts and accounts are being settled," said Dr Samer Salah al-Khan, noting that "new gangs have appeared."

Several journalists among the hundreds of foreign media in Baghdad have been robbed, IslamOnline's reporter was not an exception.

The capital's interim police chief, Zuhair al-Nuaimi, resigned Saturday, saying young blood was need. He urged Iraqis to work closely with U.S. forces.

Meanwhile, several dozen Iraqis staged a rare rally in Baghdad Sunday to thank the United States for removing Saddam Hussein, AFP said.

"Yes, yes for democracy," they chanted in Arabic in front of the Palestine Hotel where many foreign correspondents are based.