Young, healthy males swamp trucks laden with rations meant for women, children

--BBC News

The much heralded operation to distribute humanitarian aid to the people of the Iraqi border town of Safwan on Wednesday has been a "disaster", according to the vice chairman of the Kuwaiti Red Crescent - the organisation which despatched the lorry convoy of food parcels

Dr Hilal Al-Sayer told BBC News Online that the tens of thousands of prepared meals and ration kits of rice, oil, sugar and cereals destined for farms just north of the Iraqi border, had instead been hijacked soon after leaving Kuwait.

"That aid didn't get to the farms where the women and children are, our people lost control and young Iraqi men began emptying the trucks," he said.


There have been chaotic scenes in the streets of Safwan

"It went to the well, young and healthy."

Mr Al-Sayer says British troops advised staff from the Red Crescent (the local equivalent of the Red Cross) to abandon almost all their lorries to the crowd, since it was considered too dangerous to intervene to save the estimated 45,000 meal packs.