The French President Jacques Chirac has announced a European Union initiative in which wounded Iraqis - especially children - will be airlifted out of the country for urgent hospital treatment in Europe.
Chirac made the announcement after an informal EU summit meeting to sign an accession treaty with 10 states due to join the bloc next year.
Bitterly divided before the US-led war in Iraq broke out last month, EU leaders used this first summit since the fall of Baghdad to seek a common stand on the role of the EU and the United Nations in helping reconstruct the devastated country.
Humanitarian aid has been high on the EU priority list, especially after looters ransacked Iraqi hospitals so badly that many wounded could no longer be properly treated.
"We mentioned the possibility of setting up quickly, in the next few days, an airlift to Iraq in accord with the current occupation authorities," he said, referring to the US and British forces whose intervention he strongly opposed.
The airlift would ferry to Europe "the injured, especially children, who cannot be properly treated on the spot. "I suggested the idea to the president of the European Commission, who accepted it," Chirac said. "We have to move fast."