WFP's massive logistics operation at Iran's Bandar Imam Khomeini port, or BIK, is not only playing an integral part in getting urgent food aid to post-war Iraq. It is also rebuilding relations between two nations. WFP's Nahid Siamdoust contributed this report.

Bandar Imam Khomeini, June 13 - There are no rivers flowing between this hot, barren port in southwestern Iran and Iraq, but an unprecendented exercise in bridge-building is underway.

Dockworkers more accustomed to loading ships with oil are instead busy unloading tens of thousands of tonnes of food, all of it to be trucked across the border into Iraq, Iran's former adversary.

When approached by WFP logistics officers looking for a suitable port to get food quickly into post-war Iraq, Iranian authorities were quick to put memories of the 1980-1988 war behind them.

In assisting WFP in this operation, we don't think politics, we think people. We understand the suffering and empathise
Parvis Iranshahi, Public Relations Director for Bandar Imam Khomeini Port

"In assisting WFP in this operation, we don't think politics, we think people," says Parvis Iranshahi, public relations director for the port.

"We understand the suffering and empathise. Iraqis are Muslims too. It is our responsibility to help get humanitarian
assistance to them."

"The Iranian government has made an enormous effort to facilitate our work here," says Marius De Gaay Fortman, WFP's country director in Iran.

"President Khatami even issued a decree to various agencies that was very forceful. The result is that agencies fundamental to our work here are committed to making this a success."

BIK-ON OF HOPE

The Bandar Imam Khomeni port, only 120 kilometers from the border, is an excellent staging point for getting aid to four Iraqi cities in the most desperate need of assistance --Basra, Nassariyeh, Al Amara and Al Kut. Iraq's only port on the Persian Gulf, Umm Qasr, is itself to shallow to receive many of the ships that will take part in the relief effort.

Indeed, the work that will be carried out at BIK in the coming months will be done on a scale rarely seen in WFP's 40 year history.

"This month alone we are going to be handling 72,000 tonnes of cargo," says Sasa Zarkovacki, WFP's chief logistics officer in Iran.

"If we raise the tonnage dispatched to 3000 tonnes a day, then I can say the only other operation of this size I have ever been a part of was in Bosnia during the humanitarian crisis there from 1995 to 1998."

In the midst of the busy port, WFP logistics officer Riaz Lodhi makes clear just how monumental a task this is.

"Here at the port, the maximum capacity of transport is 400 to 500 tonnes per day, but the WFP target is 2,000 to 3,000 tonnes per day," he says. "Neither the port operators nor our subcontractors here have ever seen such a large, complicated, high-speed operation on this scale before. "

But Lodhi and his colleagues say the port has immense potential and is well-organized and they are confident goals will be met.

UNPRECEDENTED OPERATION

The responsibility of carrying out WFP's largest humanitarian operation has fallen largely on the logistics teams in the countries surrounding Iraq. And this is an enormous operation.

Consider, for example, that it takes ten days for just one vessel to be discharged. All of the food aid must then be safely stored in warehouses while some 750 trucks are found to transport it to Iraq for distribution. Visas are needed for the truck drivers, and an endless number of licenses and permits must be processed.

In Iran alone, the country's logistics department has been expanded from a pre-war staff of 4 to 32 by the end of March. The Bandar Imam Khomeini sub-office had to be quickly established, as well as other sub-offices along Iran's western border with Iraq.

The team in charge of ensuring that the food aid passes through the port and into Iraq as fast as possible is an international consortium of WFP staff -- both at the port and in Tehran -- working alongside port personnel and Iranian government officials.

Zarkovacki - a Croat who is usually based in Uganda for WFP -- says though huge in scale, this operation is typical of the work WFP has excelled at for years.

"We've all come here from different parts of the world to make this happen - to make sure the humanitarian situation in Iraq improves with the aid we're able to offer."

BRIDGING RELATIONS

The Danish port captain Poul Skov has been part of major WFP operations around the world, including those in Mozambique and South Africa. Skov notes that added to the challenges they face in the port, is the fact that the borders between Iran and Iraq were closed for years by the war in the 1980's and the uneasy truce that followed.

"Iranian truck drivers have been initially reluctant to go into Iraq," he says. "The initial speed of our operation here might be a bit slow because of the lack of cross-border relations but we expect it to pick up when Iranian drivers gain confidence and border authorities get used to high speed transport requirements."

Amid the frantic pace of organising vessels, trucks and people, Skov reflects, "The purpose of this operation is humanitarian. Without remembering that ultimate purpose, we all would lose focus."

"So many of these children will not live past the age of 40," observed Maarit Hirvonen, WFP Programme Coordinator in Erbil. "But with the help of food aid, we can give them as many fulfilling years as possible."